4 | OCTOBER 21 • 2021
PURELY COMMENTARY
essay
Why ‘Zoom Judaism’ will Fade,
and Synagogues will Thrive
W
hat will Jewish
life be post-pan-
demic?
Jews will run back to the
synagogue. They will not
drift back; they will run back.
Yes, adjust-
ments will be
made: The
Jewish commu-
nal world will
rethink the need
for large facil-
ities and will
reduce infra-
structure costs. Digital tools
will be more important.
Synagogue and JCC mem-
berships will be somewhat
smaller. And Zoom worship
will remain a fixture for
those who need it (Virtual
worship has made the syna-
gogue more accessible, and
that is a blessing).
During the pandemic, the
Jewish community needed
to be more resourceful —
and it was. We needed to
make use of technology in
a sophisticated way, and we
did. As a result, our Judaism
is more hybrid, inclusive and
creative.
But what we have learned,
more than anything else, is
how much we miss tactile,
face-to-face Judaism. Zoom
Judaism is wonderfully con-
venient, but alas, it is also,
ultimately, religiously unful-
filling and terribly isolating.
And precisely because
some of what we have been
doing during the pandemic
will be permanent — many,
many Jews will spend more
time working at home — not
5 days a week but 2 or 3
days a week — the in-person
dimension of synagogue life
will become that much more
important.
The communal aspect of the
synagogue is the beating heart
of our Jewish experience.
Absent community, Judaism
survives barely, if at all; our
ritual is barren, our worship
withers, and we struggle to
study Torah. Better death than
solitude, the rabbis teach — o
chavruta, o mituta.
This is hardly a new
insight, of course, but in the
last half century, it is some-
thing that has become more
and more apparent. Most
American Jews no longer
live in Jewish neighbor-
hoods. They no longer have
grandparents who live down
the block and who are there
for Jewish holidays and for
babysitting.
In this new American real-
ity, despite endless moaning
about the inadequacies of
congregations, the synagogue
has become more important
than ever. It is there that Jews
find the community that they
have been missing, help in
raising their children, and
the sense of holiness that
community fosters.
And the pandemic, inter-
estingly, has made us appre-
ciate the synagogue in ways
that we did not before. We
see now more clearly than
before that it is the syna-
gogue that enables us to find
religious support in a lonely
world.
It is often the only place
that always cares about you
as an individual and where,
if you are not there, someone
misses you. It is the one place
where no one suffers alone or
grieves alone.
LIMITATIONS OF ‘VIRTUAL’
But community cannot truly
flourish if it is virtual. It can-
not, no matter how many
times experts tell you it can.
We know this from the
data: four in 10 U.S. adults
had developed symptoms
of depression or anxiety by
the end of 2020, the year
of doing things online.
According to the UCLA
Loneliness Scale (which is
the gold standard of such
things), 61% of Americans
are measurably lonely. No
matter how many Zoom ses-
sions we may have, virtual
experiences leave us isolated,
and isolation is not our natu-
ral state.
The net can offer infor-
mation, novelty, a variety of
fleeting attachments and an
outlet for passionate political
opinions. But it cannot offer
meaningful friendship, real
community or vibrant and
authentic Judaism.
And we know this too
from Martin Buber. In the
mid-20th century, he pre-
sciently warned us to beware
of television, computers and
technological aids when we
thought about how to edu-
cate the young and pass on
Judaism to others.
Such things, he said, could
convey information, but the
essence of Jewish education
and transmission is the direct
bond between teacher and
student and what one person
learns from another.
What all this means is that
when the pandemic is over,
the synagogue, if it seizes
the opportunity, will thrive
as never before. It will be
uniquely positioned to offer a
Judaism that will be desper-
ately needed and personally
transformative, built on face-
to-face encounters.
God insisted on meeting
with Moses panim el panim,
face to face. And if Jews
of the synagogue wish to
retrieve the Jewish soul from
oblivion and unveil life’s fun-
damental holiness, they will
do as God did — practicing
Judaism face to face, and not
on the screen.
Eric Yoffie is the former president of
the Union for Reform Judaism (1996
to 2012). This essay was first pub-
lished by Brandeis University.
Eric Yoffie
COURTESY OF BRANDEIS
This will be a socially distanced event. Masks required.
*This event is free, but please bring a food donation to
benefit Gleaners Community Food Bank.
To celebrate our brand-new assisted living and memory care
community, we’re hosting a Fall Festival on the grounds
of our future setting, opening in early 2022.
Fun for the whole family includes:
Pony rides
Live petting zoo
Balloon animals
Complimentary food trucks
Yummy s’mores
Hot cider
Giveaways and prizes*
Fresh homemade donuts