How Rabbis will celebrate Passover during COVID-19

Passover begins on Saturday and a year into the pandemic, WINK News looks at how Rabbis in Southwest Florida will be ringing in the holiday.

With a year of this pandemic already behind us, the idea of liberation is particularly poignant to people right now.

The story of Passover is about freedom. And the feeling of freedom wasn’t so free during Passover 2020, thanks to the pandemic.

Rabbi Yitzchok Minkowicz is with Chabad Lubavitch of Southwest Florida. “In terms of the time we were in, was a big dark cloud over everybody,” said Minkowicz.

Rabbi Nicole Luna is from Temple beth el. “There was no gathering. There were no small seders. Nobody was going to see their family,” Luna said.

Luckily, the Passover story of freedom is serving as inspiration for Passover 2021.

Rabbi Marc Sack represents Temple Judea in Fort Myers.

“The liberation of the Jews from Egypt was not an It feels like it was an overnight event. But it was really a much slower process than that. But eventually, we got there. And I think that’s going to happen now,” Sack said.

These Rabbis will keep their large Synagogue-wide seders on Zoom. However, they will be able to join their families in person for a smaller seder, as will many congregants.

“Now we definitely feel we’re coming out of Egypt! And we definitely feel freer that we’re able to have prayer services,” Minkowicz said.

“And so I think the message right now is what do we do with that feeling of liberation? What is the world we want to create?” Luna said.

“The Haggadah wants us to think that our freedom was a gift from God. And it was, but it only happened when God and human beings acted together. And that’s going to be true now,” Sack said.

Rabbi Sack says he will not be burned again by Zoom as he was last Passover. Last year he learned that singing in unison does not sound good and reading only works when everyone else is muted. Clearly, we’ve learned a lot in the past year.