I was responsible for one of the most sacred moments in a person’s lifecycle, and I had to hand over my control to my laptop.
I have officiated at funerals for 16 years in my community of West Bloomfield, Michigan. As a busy working mother, I am loving and patient, organized and a wizard at time management. As a rabbi, I am serious, focused and available to families around the clock. Real life doesn’t have office hours. Hospice work is my niche, so I spend a lot of time with grieving families. Usually I am the calm presence in the room, the one who isn’t shaking.
My instinct is to reach out and hold someone’s hand or embrace them, an unconscious rabbinic reflex to offer physical as well as spiritual comfort. Now I found myself recoiling, slightly embarrassed that I’d so easily forgotten about social distancing rules. It isn’t about being a control freak, it is about my role as comforter in chief. My role is to make the service as meaningful as possible, and as stress-free as possible, using the traditional words and customs that are soothing for the soul. I feared I wouldn’t be able to provide cyber-comfort.
Luckily, my colleague agreed to be on Zoom with me to troubleshoot. I made sure Saul’s family could see me and hear me. I closed the office doors behind me and welcomed everyone to the service. What I feared would be a more terrible version of a board meeting morphed into a surprisingly intimate service. The mourners could see my face clearly, and I was looking directly at theirs. There might have been a screen between us, but somehow that didn’t matter. Saul’s 45-year-old daughter gave me a reassuring smile, and I relaxed.
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