The two weeks before Passover are usually one of the busiest times of the year for Rabbi Menachem Altein, co-director, with his wife Mussy, of Chabad at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. A large public seder for students needs to be arranged, packages of handmade shmurah matzah delivered and chametz sold. Education sits at the heart of the Passover season, and so on a regular year, he’d be ramping up his Torah class offerings. This year, however, he’s spent most of this time in front of a computer screen.
With COVID-19 shuttering schools and synagogues, and gatherings disallowed or strongly discouraged, Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries around the globe scrambled to find a solution to deliver the pre-Passover information and inspiration their communities so urgently needed. Almost immediately, networks of online classes were set up. Torah classes continued, with physical locations being switched for virtual settings.
Living in the 21st century, finding an online program to host a class is fairly simple. Almost every social-media outlet offers live video streaming, and services such as Zoom video conferencing are geared for precisely the type of online meeting that suit an interactive class. The adaption of the classic lecture format to the technological version happened almost seamlessly.
In all, Chabad emissaries around the world will have given 16,000 Zoom or similar video chat-based classes by the time the first Passover Seder begins on Wednesday, April 8, at sundown.
For Altein, this meant spending more time in his home office giving classes to faces on a screen. The campus seder was canceled, but Altein is holding classes explaining the steps of the seder and hosted a model seder so students can make their own wherever they are on Passover night.
Providentially, the MIT rabbi had begun preparing even before the challenge came.
“I just recently began online classes with alumni, so the online aspect was not unchartered territory for me,” he says.
While going all-virtual did present unique challenges, he emphasized that there were also new opportunities. In fact, his online classes have drawn even higher numbers than their in-person predecessors; participants aren’t constrained by such pesky things as distance.
Jaime Francis, a student at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, is one such person. She regularly studies with Rabbi Shlomo and Shifra Sharfstein, co-directors of the Rohr Chabad House at Georgia Tech and Georgia State, but on a recent visit to her brother studying at MIT, she met Altein. Now she tunes into his classes as well.
“I think it’s really cool that I, a Georgia Tech student in Atlanta, was able to attend a class geared for students in Massachusetts, thanks to the fact that it was online,” she observes.
Francis didn’t even have a Zoom account before the coronavirus hit, and only opened one when university and Chabad classes switched to the platform.
“It shows that nothing can stop studying,” she says.
At times, the new accessibility doesn’t stretch only across time zones but can go beyond time itself. Francis’s father, who attended Georgia Tech decades before there was a Chabad presence on campus, recently got to join a class with Sharfstein.
“With me joining the class from home, he was able to listen in to the same class that he otherwise would not have gotten the opportunity to do,” says Francis.
‘Learning Online Helped Me Prepare’
Rabbi Avremi Zippel, program director at Chabad of Utah, has seen a similar trajectory.
“Almost immediately after the coronavirus showed up here, I started an online class as part of Chabad Young Professional International’s ‘CYP Academy,’ ” the rabbi says. “The main focus of the class is for young professionals, but people of all stripes are joining.”
According to Zippel, during the first few days of his class, the concept of an online Chabad classroom was somewhat of a novelty, but within a short amount of time, the online classes became part of the new normal.
Zippel has been giving a class on the Haggadah with the commentary of the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. “Thank G‑d, the class is very successful, and they are a chance to connect with people around the country and even around the world.”
For others, these classes aren’t just a new opportunity. They are the solitary resource that will allow them to celebrate some semblance of Passover this year.
“As an international student living in Boston, planning for Passover can be a struggle at times,” said Bernardo Aceituno-Cabezas, a MIT grad student. “In the past, I attended on-campus Chabad or Hillel events, or visited a family friend for the Seder. Unfortunately, the current crisis has complicated the situation for me, and all my plans were canceled. Learning online has helped me prepare for the holiday, specifically to better understand the special mitzvot associated with it.”
While he used services similar to Zoom for work-related reasons, Aceituno-Cabezas never used the platforms as a tool for learning or studies. Like Francis, he says that the online option gives him more opportunities to join classes he would not have been able to had they been in person, due to scheduling or location constraints.
Aceituno-Cabezas says he appreciates the tremendous and commendable effort Chabad made to continue teaching ahead of Passover, despite all the challenges. “Because of this, I believe that despite the crisis, I will be able to meaningfully celebrate Passover and fulfill the required mitzvot,” he said.
‘Kids Looking for Meaning in Their Lives’
For those in other age groups, the new learning experience comes with a different set of challenges.
At Chabad of the West Side in Manhattan—directed by Rabbi Shlomo and Rivka Kugel—the center’s multiple departments are utilizing modern technology to reach out to all segments of the Jewish community, from young families to seniors.
Rabbi Eliyahu and Shayna Sapochkinsky recently joined Chabad of the West Side’s team to direct CTeen, the Chabad teen network. Until now the Sapochinskys have been organizing hands-on programs with the teenagers in their CTeen chapter. Musical Havdalah ceremonies, Supper-and-Study and the occasional trip to Dave & Busters is what their schedule has looked like in the six months since they settled in Manhattan.
Some of the teens who regularly attend Chabad’s events have little other Jewish education, and so the online programming is all the more important. Ella Waisman studies with Shayna Sapochkinsky once a week, and says it encourages her to do mitzvot. “I don’t go to a Jewish school, but I try to keep Shabbat, and I learn Torah with Shayna. But the schoolwork will make it hard to properly keep Passover,” she says. “It’s only thanks to the classes continuing virtually that I know what I know about Passover, including the story of the Exodus and the seder plate.”
Jacob Katz, another teen who recently joined CTeen on the West Side, didn’t have much of a chance to get to know the emissaries before the coronavirus forced everyone home. “I usually celebrate the Seder at my cousin’s house, with lots of extended family,” he says. “This year that won’t be happening, but the online learning is helping fill in the gaps and provides a great alternative to solitude.”
As the coronavirus forces millions to shelter in place, Chabad emissaries worldwide say they will continue to use every tool at their disposal to continue the study of Torah. Instead of a centralized synagogue, every home will be transformed into a mini-synagogue: a home of learning—a home where the sound of a Torah class will sound proudly from a smartphone or the computer speakers.
“It is hard to recreate those same experiences online,” acknowledges Eliyahu Sapochinsky, “but people are looking for some meaning in their lives, especially at a time like this, and we must meet that great need.”
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