In a small congregation in a pandemic world, it is not easy to get a minyan. Yet we have done exactly that, nearly every Shabbat and holiday, since October 23, 2020. Thanks to a remarkably dedicated core of Shabbat regulars and to group of people who have answered the minyan call when we were in danger of falling short, we reestablished our Shabbat minyan.

Our minyan regulars who could be counted on weekly, semi-weekly, or monthly, included Rhonda Reider and Mike Halpern, David and Karen Reifler, Stuart Rapaport, Jim and Patti Flood, Harry Krishef, Lennox Forrest, Elisabeth Rosewall, Dovid Ben Avraham, Connor Hess, Robin Turetsky, Sandy Freed, Mark Silverstein, and Marisa Krishef.

Those who responded to the call to make up for a projected shortfall in our minyan or just showed up to surprise us occasionally were Ken Strauss, Jason Cook, Grant and Taylor Winkelman, David Alfonso, Jan and Bill Lewis, Leigh Rapaport, Jim Siegel, Ed Miller, Barb Freed, Diane Rayor, Barb Wepman, Judy Subar, and Toby Dolinka.

Our weekday Zoom minyan remained strong for about 18 months and then began to taper off. But we still have a core group of about nine who continue to participate, even without a minyan. We are grateful for Judy and Buddy (of blessed memory) Joseph, Karen and David Reifler, Cliff and Jean Shekter, Stuart Rapaport, Fred Meyerson, Binyamin Mehler, Sandy Freed, Harry Krishef, Rhonda Reider, Sol Krishef, Marc Silverstein, Esther Bookbinder, Marni Vyn, Cathy Winick, Dale Kramer, Barb Christiaans, and Mike Halprin for being part of the every-day minyan core, for being semi-regular participants, or for pitching in to make a minyan when we fall one or two short.

Our online minyan was an important component in our efforts to maintain a community during the worst of the pandemic. The halakhic basis for a zoom minyan is rooted in the notion that a person leaning into a window can be counted in a minyan taking place inside the room. In other words, they are counted as physically present, even though they are separated by a wall, as long as they can hear and be heard, see and be seen.

Constituting a remote minyan in which the participants are not physically together was a concession to sha’at ha-dhak, exigent circumstances, a crisis situation. Early in the pandemic, when we keenly felt a sense of isolation, the zoom minyan was vitally important to provide connection and spiritual nourishment.

It is clear to me from my work on the Scare Resources Allocation Committee at Spectrum Health, an extension of my work on their ethics committee, that we are still in a serious situation. Hospital have reached crisis levels of demand and are instituting new measures to allocate the scarce resources of beds and staff fairly. Nonetheless, I have been looking to establish an objective criteria for establishing the end of of the sha’at ha-dhak. As the positive test rate for COVID-19 continue to climb to unprecedented levels (the 7-day average at the beginning of December was above 23% in Kent County), we continue to do what we can to slow the spread. Even though we know that vaccinated people who contract COVID are less sick and much less likely to die, we don’t want to become a vector for spread among the unvaccinated.

I am proposing that the next time that the positive test rate in Kent County goes below the level at which the CDC recommends masking at indoor gatherings (currently, 8%) that we end the sha’at ha-dhak. At that point, our online morning service will no longer constitute a minyan, even if we have 10 or more Jewish adults participating. We will try to resume a daily minyan once a week if we can get at least 10 people to commit to regular attendance. However, we will continue to offer zoom services for as long as we have a group of people who wish to participate. Members from Holland, Big Rapids, metro-Detroit, Texas, and Arizona, who are unable to attend an in-person morning minyan, have found value being able to join with other for morning prayers, even when we are unable to say Kaddish.

אבינו מלכנו … כלה דבר וחרב ורעב ושבי ומשחית ועוון ומגיפה ופגע רע, וכל מחלה וכל תקלה וכל קטטה וכל מיני פורעניות וכל גזירה רעה ושנאת חינם, מעלינו ומעל כל בני בריתך

Our Father, our Sovereign … end pestilence and sword and famine and captivity and corruption and iniquity and plague and evil harm, and every disease and every mishap and every quarrel and all kinds of calamity and every evil decree and senseless hatred, from us and from all of your covenanted peoples.