Benjamin Netanyahu called it Seder ba’Seger in a neat wordplay on the Hebrew word for closure or lockdown.
Ironically perhaps, the prime minister was in self-imposed coronavirus quarantine in his official residence on Monday night when he made the televised appeal to Israelis to stay home on Seder night next week. He had been exposed to an Strictly Orthodox aide who has tested positive for Covid-19.
Mr Netanyahu asked citizens “to avoid family visits on the eve of the holiday. The goal is not to meet people who have been elsewhere, because this is how the disease spreads.”
Israel’s health authorities are cautiously optimistic they have the virus under control, though there is still major concern over the outbreaks among the Strictly Orthodox community and the spike in recent cases, due to people who may have been infected three weeks ago in Purim parties, is higher than has been detected so far.
And the next worry is just around the corner: that the preparations of Pessach and Seder night could cause another wave of infections.
For weeks now, families have been warned to get used to the idea that they will have to hold small Seders, with only those living together in the same house, and that it is imperative for the older parents and grandparents, who are in the risk-groups, to be left alone for fear of infection.
Among the more liberal-minded Orthodox rabbis, a halachic debate has been raging over whether it would be permissible to use a video-conferencing app such as Zoom during the Seder, to keep everyone together at least online.
While some have permitted this, the majority of Orthodox rabbis, including the Chief Rabbis, have ruled it out.
But while for many, Seder night is the high point of Pesach, for those who are more mitzvah-observant the much bigger effort is reserved in the weeks before in cleaning homes of any trace of chametz and then eating only food which is strictly Kosher for Passover throughout the seven days.
This is a logistical challenge even in “normal” years, especially for low-income Strictly Orthodox families living in tiny flats with large numbers of children.
This year, with coronavirus closures, simply stocking up on enough food for the festival it is a Herculean feat.
Charity organisations which annually distribute food before Pesach have been forced to try find large spaces to carry out their operations, or to do so in the open while trying to observe social-distancing regulations.
Supermarket chains, which in Israel replace most of their inventories before Pesach, are doing so this year as well while facing shortages of staples such as eggs, a fixture in nearly every non-chametz recipe.
And while most Orthodox rabbis have prohibited Seder nights on Zoom, there has been a certain inventiveness in their list of strictures for the festival.
Israel’s Chief Rabbis David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef wrote in a letter they published on Monday that the mitzva of biur chametz, usually carried out on the morning before Pesach by burning the last bits of chametz outside the house, can be performed this year by pouring some cleaning fluid on the chametz and throwing it in the rubbish.
Another tradition, Hagalat Kelim, which usually involves cleaning kitchen utensils of chametz by dipping them in vats of boiling water set up on many street corners in Strictly Orthodox neighbourhoods, can be replaced this year by 20 minutes in the oven at full heat.
