USA Today
By Rabbi Marc Schneier, Bishop Robert Stearns and Imam Shamsi Ali
May 1, 2020
The advent of the Coronavirus has compelled our three Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — to rethink how to maintain our ability to come together to express our beliefs and practice our religious rituals. Through the use of online technologies and social media platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, Instagram and YouTube, millions of home-bound American Jews, Christians and Muslims have been able to take part, despite the lockdown, in religious services, study sessions and celebrations of sacred and uplifting holidays — Passover, Easter and Ramadan.
Are these changes going to be temporary inconveniences or a new way for our faithful to participate?
Clearly, online religious services and celebrations will continue as a central component of our repertoire at least until a foolproof COVID-19 vaccine is made widely available. Yet it is no secret that our faithful are hungering for a rapid return to in-person services where they can experience and share their faith in ways hard to replicate on Zoom. We all want to accomplish that — the question is how to do so safely and responsibly.
First and foremost, even after we return to our houses of worship, we will need to observe strict social distancing practices. Synagogues, churches and mosques will need to ensure that worshippers sit or pray six feet apart. They must ensure that there are no handshakes, hugs or kisses between congregants. All congregants will need to wear protective masks; only clergy people who stand at a safe distance from the congregation will be able to go without face covering. Finally, prayer books will need to be disinfected before and after services.
Beyond those commonalities, each religious community will need to make painful decisions not to perform some treasured rituals and traditions that have been at the heart of the observance of our faiths for hundreds of years. At Rabbi Schneier’s Hampton Synagogue, congregants will have to dispense with the venerable customs of kissing the Torah scroll and carrying it throughout the congregation. Those congregants “called up” to the bimah (platform) to read a portion of the Torah will no longer be able to join the rabbi there but will be required to stand six feet away from the bimah.
In churches like The Tabernacle, where Bishop Stearns serves, church greeters have been instructed that upon re-opening, all interactions with congregants must be verbal, not physical. Services will no longer include the distribution and collection of offering baskets and communion trays. Instead, giving baskets will be placed in the sanctuary. While Bishop Stearns offers Communion from the altar, ushers will safely distribute individually self-contained communion elements to the congregation.
Muslims are adapting to the new painful reality by holding online Iftars (fast breaking celebrations held nightly during the month of Ramadan). Even more difficult however has been stopping the holding of daily and, especially, jummah (Friday) prayers in mosques; something that had never happened since prayers began with the Prophet Muhammad in Medina. A large and still unresolved issue is whether the government of Saudi Arabia will be able to safely sanction this year’s hajj; the upcoming annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, set for July 29 to Aug. 2. Fortunately, Islam is a highly elastic religion which gives a wide range of opportunity for Muslims to adapt to virtually any situation. Imam Ali expects that when his mosque, the Jamaica Muslim Center, reopens, he will likely mandate the shortening of prayer services or/and combining of prayer services, which in normal times, are held five times a day.
None of these sacrifices will be easy to make. Yet Judaism, Christianity and Islam each uphold the sanctity and preservation of life as our highest value. What good would it accomplish for us to come together soon as congregations to joyously to celebrate our faiths; only to recoil in horror several weeks later if it turns out we have infected each other?
We are all looking forward to being back in our houses of worship with our congregants, it is important to recognize that it will look very different than it did in the past. Some of our religious practices and rituals will need to change in order to make sure that everyone is safe. We must make sure that everyone is practicing social distancing while in our synagogues, churches and mosques.
Rabbi Marc Schneier is the founding senior rabbi at The Hampton Synagogue and the president of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
Bishop Robert Stearns is the Senior Pastor at The Tabernacle in Buffalo, New York.
Imam Shamsi Ali is the Spiritual Leader of Jamaica Muslim Center New York and the president of the Nusantara Foundation.
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