Screen Time: Dayenu!

Even swastika-toting punks hacking into one of our Zoom’s did not outweigh the transcendent power of connection — love, grief, prayer — felt through virtual gatherings over this past week.

I discovered my Zoom playlist: Monday morning blessings; songs with my preschooler’s beloved music teacher; happy-hour with the moms; and while reading TS Eliot’s The Waste Land aloud with a dozen others over a poetry Zoom, there was about an hour where I forgot that we were in the midst of a pandemic.

I’m not going to dwell too much on the swastika-toting punks who are busting into synagogue Zoom gatherings. It’s awful, and wrong, and a federal crime. I wrote that on a piece of paper which I offered to hold up during yesterday’s morning blessings, but the online security measures had already been beefed-up and it wasn’t necessary. (Besides, as I’ve learned, it would have appeared in mirror-image)

I’m going to focus, instead, on the Zoom funeral that took place last Friday. It was this gathering that served as my greatest consolation over the past week.

Watching Dan and the nine other mourners (only a minyan was allowed entry into the barricaded cemetery) use their hands - instead of shovels which they were no longer permitted to share with the gravediggers because of Covid 19 - reach into the dirt and, one at a time, place handfuls of earth over the grave, was a sight that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Some mourners in masks and gloves, others bare-handed. No one touching.

And, still, I felt so much while watching this - in real time - over my computer screen with about twenty-other people - all over the world - watching this too.

It was a connection that was strong and real, and even without physical contact with anyone else - I held my own hand to my own heart - and felt that we all were holding one another up with our shared love, and grief and prayers.

I suspect we may need to fashion new prayers for such a moment.

For now, Dayenu.

Wishing you all health, strength, love and connection.

And a meaningful Passover to All.

Chag Sameach.