Amid coronavirus crisis, families prepare to bring Seder rituals to Zoom for Passover: ‘This gathering of friends and family is all the more precious’

Months ago, Felice Eckhouse’s family made plans to gather at her sister’s home in Glenview for a catered Passover Seder with as many as 25 people. Now, they will still celebrate together through at least 11 different computer screens, hoping to adapt the dinner’s rituals to the virtual new reality.

As Illinois settles into life under the stay-at-home order to stem impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, residents are exploring ways to continue to observe religious traditions. For the Chicago area’s Jewish community, preparing for Passover this year means organizing readings of the Haggadah over Zoom, deciding how to show the Seder plate and making sure family members can use the technology.

They are also ready to improvise and extend themselves some grace and humor if the virtual celebration goes awry.

Eckhouse’s family, spread across Chicago and its suburbs, usually conducts a Seder with a large group, each participating by lighting candles, reading the Passover story and, for the children, searching for the hidden matzo. This year, they will try to replicate what they can on Zoom, the video conferencing service.

“It’s very interactive,” Eckhouse said of her family’s Seder. “But it’s either do it this way, or don’t do anything at all.”

Meanwhile, some of Eckhouse’s friends who choose not to use the technology during the holiday will have quiet Seders with only those in the household, she said.

Chicago-area rabbis are helping to guide their congregations through this year’s Passover, which begins at sundown on Wednesday.

Rabbi Shaanan Gelman said Passover is a very preparation-intensive holiday, so his synagogue, Kehilat Chovevei Tzion in Skokie, has relied on video conferences and social media to teach and communicate with its congregants.

And although a Seder is usually a communal meal shared between families and communities, Gelman said this year they are encouraging people to focus on the people inside their home and themselves.

But with governmental stay-at-home orders, Gelman said he understands this holiday will be "lonely for some people."

“This is a holiday in which we commemorate Jewish freedom from bondage from slavery,” he said. “And to a certain extent, it’s a hard year to feel that because we’re quarantined.”

Eckhouse, though, is looking on the bright side. With this year’s virtual Seder, local participants will be able to include out-of-town family members who wouldn’t have been able to join the regular feast.

“It’s kind of cool, in a way. We wouldn’t have been able to join in with family on the two coasts," she said. "That might be a way of looking at it.”

Still, the family has to navigate logistical hurdles to bring the rituals to life in nearly a dozen homes. Eckhouse is still trying to decide if each participating household will prepare its own Seder plate, which contains foods symbolic of Passover.

They are also working out how to split up the catered meal, meant to feed nearly two dozen people. Family members will likely try to coordinate apportioning and delivering the meal to different households.

Because the Seder meal has dietary restrictions, one synagogue coordinated delivery of Seder meal essentials to make it easier for people to secure their food while staying home.

“When we realized that our health required us to all shelter in place, we knew had to bring Passover to the people, and through our collective efforts we have created this program so every Jew anywhere in Illinois can have the Seder essentials,” said Rabbi Baruch Epstein with Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois.

Epstein said they received more than 900 orders from roughly 35 synagogues and Jewish community centers across the state.

For Oak Park resident Barbara Brotman’s virtual Seder, each household will be responsible for its own meal, but she is working to incorporate their customs across as many as 20 different computer screens.

Brotman, a former Tribune columnist, purchased a version of the Haggadah, which tells the Passover story, on a Kindle. She plans to share it on screen with all the Zoom participants. They will decide who will read which passages beforehand, she said.

They also already have a virtual version of the “Hide the Matzo” tradition that is usually geared toward children, who race to find the hidden unleavened bread. When Brotman’s children grew older, her husband started “mentally” hiding a piece of matzoh in history, she said. They would try to guess which era her husband was thinking through a game of 20 questions.

Brotman’s rabbi recently sent an email to the congregation reminding them that this year’s Seder “doesn’t have to be perfect.” Still, she said she is obsessing over details and logistics as they look for a new way to observe tradition.

“The fact that we’re so isolated means that this gathering of friends and family is all the more precious,” she said.

mabuckley@chicagotribune.com

janderson@chicagotribune.com

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