Seder tables powered by Zoom in coronavirus era

There will be an extra couple of items on Kenneth Baer’s Passover Seder table this year: his iPad and his laptop. 

“We need lots of camera angles,” said Baer, a Democratic strategist who worked as a senior adviser in the Obama White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

Baer, along with his wife and two children, will be hosting the Seder over Zoom this year with 11 others joining their table virtually. 

As the novel coronavirus prevents families and friends from getting together in person for Passover — the first major religious holiday since the pandemic began — millions of people will celebrate the beginning of the eight-day holiday online. Others say they will host quiet “Pesach” — Passover in Hebrew — dinners offline with their immediate families and lots of empty chairs. 

“If they are gathering, absolutely no one is talking about it,” Baer said.

“We’re doing the best we can,” he added, joking that he’s appointed his 12-year-old daughter the “head of technology” at the table. 

While there’s been some concern that people may break social distancing guidelines to see their families and friends for the holiday, a half-dozen rabbis interviewed by The Hill say their communities are taking the advisories seriously and staying home. 

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld sent an email to his congregants at Ohev Sholom, Washington’s oldest Orthodox synagogue, in the lead-up to the holiday. 

“Pesach this year is not about embracing as many customs as possible no matter how difficult or intense,” Herzfeld wrote. “This year Pesach is about emphasizing the need to guard our health and the health of those around us. The most important mitzvah we can do is save a life. If we can possibly save one more life by adopting a leniency or forgoing a treasured custom then that is the greatest mitzvah we can do.” 

In an interview, Herzfeld said his community is taking the social distancing guidelines “extraordinarily seriously.”

“People have to obey the public health policies,” Herzfeld said. “This is not a joke. … These are unprecedented times.”

He has encouraged his congregants to “make the most of a bad situation” when it comes to celebrating Passover. 

“Everyone has their own unique challenge,” he said. “We’re all just trying to do our best.”

Daniel Braune-Friedman, a rabbi at a nursing home in the greater Washington area, was planning to host 30 people at his home this year. But in the past two weeks, as states began to issue stay-at-home advisories, “there was a sudden change.” 

Instead, Braune-Friedman, who is Orthodox, said he will have a quiet Seder at home with his family, choosing not to go the electronic route. Orthodox Jews cannot use electronics on the Sabbath or during Jewish holidays. 

“There’s been a lot of talk about Zoom,” he said. “We’ve chosen not to do that.” 

At the same time, “I don’t know anyone who is physically gathering,” he said. “Everyone in our community is being very strict about it.” 

Rabbi Jarah Greenfield, who works in southwestern Vermont and western Massachusetts, said Passover this year was forcing families to think outside the box. 

Greenfield and her wife, along with their 6-year-old son, will host one Seder session on Zoom for one side of the family and a separate session 30 minutes later for the other side of the family. 

In an email to families in her community last week, she acknowledged the frustration many are feeling about the unconventional Seder dinners.

“As I look at a very different Passover this year, you may be feeling a bit like me … not so jazzed about a remote Seder experience and a little overwhelmed by the prospect of being sufficiently creative and able to craft a meaningful Seder,” she wrote. “If you are in the same boat, first, let me say, I see you. I’m with you.”