This past shabbat for the first time I decided to scout out the “street minyan” they were having at our shul. We used to daven (pray) inside the small shul in the Open University campus (a small college in Ra’anana) located just down the street from where we live. Its a very nice campus on a large plot of land, pretty open spaces, many buildings for classes, a cafeteria, etc, just like you’d expect a small college campus to look. You enter from the main street through a gate enclosed in a small office with a guard, metal detector, etc. That small guard office is set back from the street so that there is a medium sized area, sort of like an extra wide sidewalk, in front of that area. Since COVID started, the entire campus has been closed. Last week they decided to allow prayer gatherings of up to 19 people staying 2 meters apart, so they’ve been meeting on the sidewalk outside the guard office. So Friday night I walked down there, a little unsure what I would find. Sure enough, there were several plastic chairs set up, all spaced way apart from each other. We did the evening service before shabbat. As the roughly one hour combination of the three short services (minha – the afternoon service; kaballat shabbat – the welcoming shabbat service; and ma’ariv – the evening service) moved along, it became gradually darker outside so that I was holding my prayer book up at an angle to catch some of the light from the nearby streetlamp. The service was nice, the atmosphere was very nice, sort of “campy,” birds chirping, the trees all around, etc. Except that everyone wearing masks and standing awkwardly far apart from each other.
The next morning, I decided to try it again for shabbat morning services. In the past we would arrive partway into the service, however this time I decided to deliberately go by myself just to scout it out, and also because they are trying to keep the numbers down, below 19 people. So I used this as an opportunity to try to actually get there on time, at the beginning of the service, at 8:30AM. I was out the door before anyone else in the house was even awake, walked down the street, found the people and the plastic chairs, and then noticed my friend and a couple other people looking at me with wide eyes in a slightly horrified way. I though for a moment, what’s going on? Am I not supposed to be here? They look as if I left the house without my pants on! And then it dawned on me – I had just committed the most grievous social faux-pax possible in these times. I had left the house without my mask! OMG, as the embarrassment began to sink in, I froze for a moment. Then conceded the point and decided I would just walk back home to get my mask; it wasn’t a very long walk anyway. As I was leaving, I heard a voice calling my name. I turned back to see that one of the other congregants was sending his young son to run back to their apartment, which was just across the street, to bring an extra mask. So I stayed, loitering in silence in my embarrassment, and waited for the little boy to bring a mask over to my chair. After that little episode, the service moved on as normal. But just to show you that when you think things can’t get any worse, they can, it began to rain. Seriously. A nice soft rain, but rain nonetheless. On our outside street minyan. With an actual sefer torah (torah scroll) on a portable table up against the wall of the small guard house in front. I moved under a tree as best I could, happy that my talit bag was encased in one of those waterproof clear vinyl zipper bags. Luckily, the torah scroll was underneath a partial overhang from the guard office and the rain finally stopped after about 15 minutes. Other than that, it was a very nice, albeit surreal and weird, shabbat morning service.
