Least Common Denominator

Covid-19's disruptions include cancellation of religious services.  In addition to shabbos, we missed Pesach, Shavuot, and Tisha B'Av in direct communal worship.  Some denominations allow streaming but it's really an invitation to participants to engage in a computer on days when computers are turned off.  The Conservative Rabbis would rule that it is possible to put the computer on before candle lighting and turn it off after havdalah, which it is, but a lot of halachic determination by Sages in the Talmud depend in great part on what those Sages would expect their constituencies to really do.  They will turn their computers on and off at their convenience.  The Rabbis have the Honor, the Congregants have the System. The Orthodox Rabbis seem to reason more like Sages.

Since our congregational rabbi has ruled against streaming, we've had some Hebrew school Junior Congregation adaptations with Kabbalat Shabbat, Yizkor and Hallel pre-recorded along with a sermon.  Not that it affects a lot of people.  The High Holy Days are a whole other matter.  American congregations center their years and their annual financial positions around those days.  It makes a lot of sense either to pre-record the service in its entirety or to have a minyan, however a Congregation defines it, of participants assemble with social distancing precautions, do the service live while streaming it to the homes of their worshippers.

That's not an option we have. Our shul has assembled a High Holiday Committee, which like other congregational committees I was not invited to.  I must say, what's come out leaves me unenthused. I was asked to repeat my annual Yom Kippur Torah reading, and went to the site attired in a suit and sneakers to record it.  When I asked the current and past Presidents to take a scroll out for me to read it, they immediately rebuffed the request.  I was to read it from the Machzor and announce the pages as I go.  Why would anyone want to watch this?  I did not ask them if they would also have a Bond Appeal and a Congregational Appeal for people to watch.  It wouldn't surprise me.  The HH of Rabbinical Junior College it seems.

There are some better options for Modern Orthodox synagogues that have to modify their assemblies to protect the health of their participants.  The Forward had an article outlining some of them.  https://forward.com/news/452226/no-streaming-no-singing-heres-how-high-holidays-will-work-in-modern/  Some look adaptable.  But our committees do not do a lot of exploration, discussion of options, or creative initiatives.  Which is probably why I've been blackballed from them.