Talmud this Shabbat: How to Do a Zoom Seder When No One Has Ever Done a Zoom Seder Before?

Zoom seder? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

Zoom is about screens. Distance. Long-distance. Seders should be about face to face.

My own family has an absolute rule, which we had never violated until two weeks ago: no screens at the table! Dinner is about face to face, all the more so a seder is about face to face.

And yet, like many other families, this year we will be doing a zoom seder. Shira, Sam and I are in Newton. Our other children are in San Francisco and Los Angeles. If we want to share a seder, we have no choice but Zoom. Many other families have shared that they are in the same predicament and plan on using Zoom for the first time at their seders.

How do we do a Zoom seder when nobody before has ever done a Zoom seder?

Tomorrow morning, Michelle, Aliza, Elias, Dan and I will talk not only about how to do a Zoom seder, but more generally how to do a seder that is responsive and helpful to this surreal moment.

Each member of the clergy team will share his or her best single move for a meaningful seder. It could be a text, a song, a recipe, an idea, a poem.

From our seder table to yours, with love. May all of our families find in this dystopian time seders of surpassing beauty and meaning and joy and love that transcends all.

See you tomorrow morning virtually at 8:30.

Shabbat shalom,
Wes