Despite the international quarantines and travel restrictions caused by coronavirus, Israel’s top rabbinical authority for Judaism, The Chief Rabbinate, has forbidden Jews from using Zoom or other video conferencing apps so that distant family members can meet for Passover seders, the ritual service and ceremonial dinner held during the most important Jewish holiday, according to Haaretz.
The Rabbinate’s disapproval follows the release of a letter last week from a group of Orthodox Sephardic rabbis in Israel which approved of video conferencing specifically for this year’s Passover as a way for families to virtually convene despite pandemic-related social distancing measures.
The Orthodox Sephardic rabbis’ letter stressed the importance of children bonding with grandparents as a way to keep close ties to Judaic tradition. The letter also said that video conferencing during Passover could help “remove sadness from adults and the elderly, to give them motivation to continue fighting for their lives, and to prevent them from succumbing to depression, which might cause them to despair of life.”
Nevertheless, The Chief Rabbinate issued its own prohibition on video conferencing just yesterday.
The Chief Rabbinate’s prohibition stems from Jewish religious law (halakha) which forbids the use of electricity, including computers and other technological devices, during Jewish holidays like Passover. The use of electricity is also forbidden during Shabbat, the weekly day of rest that occurs from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday.
“The loneliness is painful,” The Chief Rabbinate wrote, “and we must respond to it, perhaps even with a video conference on the eve of the holiday before it begins, but not by desecrating the holiday which is only permitted in cases of pikuach nefesh (to save a life).”
The prohibition also aligns with Israeli social distancing policies which forbid citizens from visiting extended family homes for holiday rites. Israelis are also forbidden from going more than 100 meters from their homes during the epidemic.
The Chief Rabbinate consists of two Chief Rabbis—an Ashkenazi rabbi and a Sephardi rabbi—both who serve a 10-year term. Currently, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi is David Lau and the Sephardi Chief Rabbi is Yitzhak Yosef. Both began serving in 2013.
The Chief Rabbinate interprets Jewish law as it applies to issues of marriage and divorce, kosher food laws, conversion to Judaism, burials, as well as the supervision of holy sites, Orthodox Jewish seminaries and the country’s rabbinical courts.
Newsweek reached out to Rabbi Marc Schneier, President of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, to ask his thoughts about the Chief Rabbinate’s ruling, but didn’t hear back from him at the time of publication.
