“With the Pandemic Still Raging, I am Blessed to Do My Part to Defeat it”: Exploring COVID-19 Jewish Liturgy and Prayers in Israel and the United States

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, synagogues faced closure, and many non-Orthodox communities transitioned their prayer services to online platforms. This presented a significant challenge for community leaders and rabbis who were faced with a profound community crisis. An innovative response emerged including new prayers and the adaptation of existing ones to better address the pandemic’s unique realities, integrating aspects of health, divinity, community, and the environment. This study engages in a textual analysis of these prayers, exploring how these mirror cultural and social attitudes toward the body and embodiment. While the body was seen during the COVID-19 period as problematic, an object of contagion and spreader of disease (e.g., by not keeping proper distance or masking), in these particular texts it is no longer slandered, but revealed as an obedient and disciplined agent. The prayers seek to overcome the disruption in the individual’s relationship with their body and with other bodies. The prayer authors propose to the worshipper, while also conceptually changing traditional ideas and practices, to view the body as an object that must be cleaned, vaccinated, purified, and allowed to continue its function. The concern for both the well-being of the living body and the dignity of the deceased extends to care for society and humanity as a whole. Therefore, this liturgy can be seen as a pragmatic means to promote a “theology of humanistic responsibility.”