Of all the technological changes the last two years have brought, none is more prevalent than Zoom. Pre-2020, a Zoom call was a rare annoyance, something that many of us would’ve only had to endure a few times a year, and only ever in a professional environment. If only we knew how good we had it. Since the start of the pandemic, Zoom calls have become the easy escape route for any event, ceremony, gathering or minyan. There are Zoom pub quizzes, Zoom interviews, Zoom dates, and even sadly, Zoom Layoffs. Zoom has become a parasitic interloper in every aspect of our daily lives, with its irritating sound effects and unflattering camera angles.
It’s not a surprise then that after taking over our entire working lives, Zoom has completely infiltrated our simchas. What were once joyous in-person events, now take on the functional appearance of a regional sales meeting for a mid-tier import/export company. There’s something really quite odd about getting dressed up just to sit in front of the same desk you work at, to patiently sit through a bar mitzvah with not even the promise of a mediocre Kiddush to keep you going.
Luckily in the UK, we’ve largely moved past the need for personal Zoom events, choosing once again to drag ourselves to services across the UK for b’nei mitzvot, weddings and the like. But, one community that has not moved back to in person events is the Beth El synagogue in Minneapolis.
For those that remain blissfully unaware, during a Zoom bat mitzvah service earlier this month, two congregants at the Minnesota synagogue began having sex while in full view of their computer camera, subjecting the attendees to a full Amsterdam-style live show for around 45 (!) minutes. Briefly putting aside the impressive stamina of the couple, it’s worth considering whether they were simply fulfilling their Talmudic duties. As far more accomplished Jewish scholars have written in this very paper, rabbis throughout the ages have considered intimacy on the Shabbat a duty for a man and wife. And who are we to scorn such expression of the Talmudic ideals?
I’ve sat through plenty of Bnei Mitzvahs and very rarely does anything interesting happen. The amount of my life I’ve wasted sitting through a pre-teen’s parashah wondering how many more verses of broken Hebrew are still to come doesn’t bear thinking about. Now I’m not saying every Bar Mitzvah should descend into a Tijuana sideshow like the spectacle in Minneapolis but can you blame the randy congregants for wanting to keep themselves busy while a service which they had presumably no connection to played out in the background?
Not to be facetious about what must’ve been a traumatic entrance to adulthood for one unlucky batmitzvah girl, but I’m sure we’ve all relished the secrecy that switching off the camera during a tedious video call brings. The ability to do household jobs, to check emails on your phone, to do literally anything other than pay attention is one tiny blessing that the Zoom age has brought us. It is a privilege that our past selves could have only dreamed of.
The last two years worth of Zoom socialising has been unbearable, and I’m glad to see the back of it. But as we move back to in person socialising I can’t help but think sometimes it would be useful to be able to multitask in the way I’ve become so used to. And with the decline of Zoom meetings, we may also see the end of hilarious inadvertent Zoom sex scandals. So while the synagogue shtuppers might feel mortified today, tomorrow and for several days to come, they can take some solace in the fact that it’ll be a lot harder to get caught in an age without Zoom.
