Skype Journal

When my grandmother died, my father mourned traditionally. That included saying the Mourner’s Kaddish (text) at three services daily for eleven months. I was in high school, my brother in junior high, and we wound up going with Dad to many of those hundreds of services that year.

Most daily Orthodox Jewish services are surprisingly brisk, informal and matter-of-fact. Morning services smell of coffee and are early so people can get to school or work. Afternoon and evening services at dusk are an interruption on your way home. The guys get to know each other pretty well and some minyonaires become friends.

It takes ten to make a minyan. Jewish law defines a quorum of ten adults, or a minyan (מִנְיָן)‎, for specific prayer services. A minyan lets you recite the prayer for your dead relative or read the weekly Torah portion in services.

We lived, at the time, in Long Beach, California. It was a backwater for observant Judaism and we couldn’t count on having the ten we needed for my father to say Kaddish. We’d usually go to the one minyan held across town but we’d sometimes be disappointed. We’d wind up on the phone, asking guys to come down for half an hour. We’d stop people on the street and ask if they could spare a few minutes. And sometimes we’d just go without.

That was a generation ago. What happens today if you’re stuck at nine? Can you phone in your tenth? Can the tenth Skype into your service?

I asked this of a Maryland Torah scholar after this last Rosh Hashanah. [Happy 5771, everyone! ]

Before we get into the technology: Why do we need a minyan in the first place? Since Jews talk directly with G-d, without intermediaries found in some other religions, why do we need others?

Is a minyan special? Why does a group have the power to hear the Kohan’s blessing? The most respected interpretation holds a minyan assures G-d’s attention to its prayers, that the collection of souls in one place brings the light of G-d’s spirit on that place. A minyan is like having G-d on the speakerphone.

That’s the purpose; what’s the practice? We have to bring the people together in space.

The Code of Jewish Law [Orach Chayim 55] says:

13] The ten (who constitute the minyan) must be in one place and the leader with them. If one stands in the doorway from the threshold and outward, that is, were the door closed, from the point where the interior face of the door rests and outward is treated as outside.

14] If a person is standing outside the synagogue and there is a window, even if it is several stories high and smaller than four cubits [six feet] wide, if he shows his face (in the window) he may be counted. Note: Roofs and upper floors are not considered to be in the house. One who stands there is not counted.

15] If a few of them (vi. the potential minyan) are inside and a few are outside, and the leader is positioned in the entrance he connects them (to form one minyan).

18] If part of the ten were in the synagogue and part were in the courtyard they do not connect (to form a minyan).

How close is close enough? From Wikipedia (perhaps the ultimate source of Talmudic pop-culture):

It is not just the status of the individual which dictates eligibly; the physical arrangement of the minyan is also a factor. Maimonides delineates the confines which are placed on the arrangement of the people making up a minyan. Ideally all the members of the minyan should be gathered in one room. However, if they are within hearing distance of one another, it is permitted for the ten to be distributed in two adjoining rooms.[25] Later authorities limit the extent of this opinion and rule that even if there is an opening between the two rooms, the two groups are still considered separate entities. Only in extraneous circumstances is it permitted, as long as some of the men in each room can see each other.[26]

So, for my geeky friends, you can count ten people when they are in physical proximity, enjoy full-duplex acoustic intelligibility, and have uninterrupted line-of-sight vision of each other.

Clearly the third and sixth century scholars of the Babylonian Talmud didn’t anticipate any way for people being close, for meeting, for talking, other than being in the same room. But their argument was specific: the next room creates a separation, a division. You might hear people through a closed door but that is not enough. An open doorway (perhaps like an open Skype window?) doesn’t restore the spiritual connection. You must be physically present in the same room. 

You count even if you’re asleep or not paying attention. Even your unconscious self makes a miniyan if you are in the room.

So at what point does the new virtual presence match physical presence? Skype lets you see and hear everyone else, be seen and heard, and to respond amen. Skype can do this with vivid, high-fidelity, life-sized, two-way representations.

Yet it remains merely a representation.

You still can’t touch your colleagues or smell the room. Your field of view is limited, as is the field by which you can be seen. Virtual presence feels distinct. I’m still here and you’re still there. We must willingly suspend disbelief to ignore the hardware that delivers our conversation. Perhaps that convenient fiction keeps us from fully committing to the moment, to the others in the room. This moment is not fully shared, our fates are not fully connected.

It takes grounded, immersive, elbow-rubbing fellowship to pierce the limits of consciousness, enabling a collective breath of the divine. The presence of others helps you be so present that you transcend your solitary relationship with your god and experience the magnitude of your tribe’s relationship.

Skyping doesn’t qualify. No more than a phone call.

Skype is almost like being there.

Almost.

Halachically, at least.

For now.

Jargon:

• drash. As a noun, can mean "interpretation" or "explanation." per Reb Deb’s Glossary.
• virtual. Not real.
• Maimonedes. A rabbi who codified Jewish commandments and philosophy.

Bonus points: The language of the Kaddish is…

See also:

• Jason Miller, The Virtual Minyan Revisited (2010)
• Rabbi Avram Israel Reisner. Wired to the Kadosh Barukh Hu: Minyan via Internet (2001)

photo: "Yom Kippur services for our boys somewhere in France," circa 1917 by Center for Jewish History, NYC, on Flickr