When the police chief of Elgin cancelled his monthly community meeting because it is so cold it is dangerous to be outside, I decided that we needed to cancel a special yahrzeit meeting. It was a hard decision and disappointing to those who wanted to say Kaddish. But with the U46 District Schools and the Chicago Public Schools and now the police chief canceling everything, I didn’t think we had a choice. It was going to be -18 degrees, before we got to the wind chill factors.

For me it was a pekuach nefesh issue. I wasn’t willing to put people at risk to say Kaddish. Kaddish, we have all said, is for the living. It praises G-d for life. The people who wanted to say Kaddish, on the actual day of the yahrzeit had all been in shul this weekend when their loved ones names were read. We would have a minyan on Wednesday. We were just not going to go out in last night’s cold.

Then I had an idea. What if we did a virtual minyan? What if we set up a dial in number like a conference call. People could stay in their toasty living rooms with whatever siddur they had at home and we could davven remotely.

The use of technology to enhance worship is not new to Judaism or to me. When Sarah was little and I was doing a lot of business travel, she would call me at bedtime and sing the Sh’ma. I miss those days. When my mother couldn’t get to shul, Sarah would blow shofar on the phone, or sing the Four Questions. When she went to college we frequently sang the candle blessings Friday night together. It was a special moment. When I was the rabbi at a Jewish assisted living residence we used a videotape of Kol Nidre for our Kol Nidre service/program. For one wedding with the parents of the groom in another country, I had them call in on their cell phone one of the sheva brachot. That way they could participate too.

Just today there was a story on Here and Now on NPR about a congregation in Kansas reaching out to Latin America on cyberspace: http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/01/28/rabbi-virtual-synagogue I knew that the Reform Movement have been broadcasting services, first on radio, then television, now live streaming for decades. I know that some funeral homes will help stream funerals to out-of-towners. I personally watched Debbie Friedman’s funeral remotely.

I remembered an article that appeared in Voices of Conservative Judaism about Skyping a Minyan, http://www.cjvoices.org/article/skyping-the-minyan/ Our congregation will videotape (yes, still VHS!) a Shabbat morning service so the Bar/Bat Mitzvah family will have  a record of it and can share it with out-of-town family.

I know that some Orthodox have been asking about the halachic implications of using an iPod or other digitally recorded music on Shabbat because you aren’t creating anything new. I knew that there were a couple of completely virtual congregations, http://ourjewishcommunity.org and http://punktorah.org most notably.

But would ours feel like a community? Would it count? Would people be “yotzei”, fulfilling in their obligation to say Kaddish.

I decided to try it. In an hour and 15 minutes, I had set up a conference call line, sent out emails, posted it to Facebook, called the people who were actually observing yahrzeit, and ran through a service from Siddur Sim Shalom picking extra readings from A Minyan of Comfort. At 8:10PM I dialed in. By 8:14 we had a minyan on the line. We davvened. I sang. I read. We didn’t all have the same books, but we had the same words in the Hebrew. There seemed to be a brief delay. We were not all on the same pace. I missed seeing people’s faces (but that is true when I davven Sephardic style in the center of the people as well).

Would I change some things? Yes. I would give more notice. Would I try Skype? Maybe. But there are still delays on Skype and it is harder to set up because people need to download the application first. Anyone can dial into a conference line. Would I try some other conferencing program or maybe Google. Perhaps. Did I go back to look at what the Conservative Movement says after the fact. You bet. Here is what I found:

In 1998 Rabbi Avraham Reisner and the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (the halachic body of the Conservative Movement) wrote a responsa entitled “Wired to the HaKadosh Baruch Hu.” Accepted in 2001, it concluded that the internet could not be used for creating a virtual minyan. The full Teshuva is available here: http://rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/public/halakhah/teshuvot/19912000/reisner_internetminyan.pdf

It is best to require a group of ten people in close proximity. It builds community. However, it is permissible to consider oneself “yotzei” if walking by a shul and hearing a shofar. It is also permissible if 10 are gathered for someone to call in.  They concluded that in terms of Mourner’s Kaddish, a mourner  may recite it from a distance, but must be accompanied by a physical participant (a member who is physically present) in the minyan. This preserves community. Without this concluding statement, individuals might take it a step further and recite Mourner’s Kaddish on their own. Rabbi Reisner really wanted, according to Rabbi Miller, to conclude that virtual minyanim could be halachic. He wanted people to be able to fulfill their obligations. And he wanted people who are not able to attend because they are homebound or traveling to be able to participate.

The Teshuva raised some good points. However, it has been more than a decade since its decision. Rabbi Jason Miller asks some good questions here: http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/jewish_techs/virtual_minyan_revisited

But for us it worked. On a cold, life threatening night, we met, each in our own living rooms, safe. We had the intention, the kavanah of having a service and so we did. We had knowledgeable people and that helped. Someone mentioned my strong voice carried it. The people saying Kaddish felt comforted by their community–even though they couldn’t get hugs. Virtual hugs are just not the same. However, as one member said, “Virtual? Maybe, but hearts and minds and spirit all together in one place, albeit in a digital manner. If G-d is all-knowing — knowing what was, what is, and what will be — that minyan was acceptable!”