Park Avenue Synagogue Offers Virtual Prototype for Shuls

(Left to Right): Cantoral Fellow Joshua Rosenberg, Cantor Azi Schwartz, members of the PAS ensemble during Park Avenue Synagogue Live Stream.

This is the final installment of a three-part series on the pandemic’s impact on Jewish congregational life. (See Also: How Synagogues Can Reinvent Themselves in the Post-COVID Era and Will Synagogues Experience a ‘Yavneh Moment’?)

The High Holidays are a challenging time for me. Rosh Hashanah has always been my favorite Jewish holiday. But on erev Rosh Hashanah nearly six years ago, my younger brother, Michael, was brutally murdered in Tucson, Arizona, where I grew up.

Ever since, Rosh Hashanah has changed for me. It’s taken time, but I’m just starting to enjoy the holiday again. Part of that enjoyment comes from the liturgical music and rabbinical leadership I need to experience during the holidays.

But something very different happened to me this year. It genuinely surprised me.

Like many American Jews last year, I knew the High Holiday season would be different. The entire experience was going to be online. COVID-19 gave us little choice.

I was looking for something special around Rosh Hashanah and started Googling, “High Holiday services.” Near the top of the list, I saw the Park Avenue Synagogue (PAS) in New York City. It sounded vaguely familiar, so I clicked on the link.

Nourishing the Spirit

From the first moments, the PAS service was warm and engaging, and the music was phenomenal. I was hooked immediately. It was joyful, and it fed my soul.

As the son of a rabbi, I have spent a great deal of time with a wide cross-section of rabbis and cantors. I knew instantly that this group was something special. This was no ordinary online service. This was the best of the best. If one could fall in love with a shul online, I was smitten. By the end of the service, I was ready to become a member, and I really was not looking to join a New York-based synagogue.

My wife, Debbie, encouraged me to look further into membership. I remember thinking this was kind of a nutty thing to do. I was not even sure if PAS had a membership category that would fit us.

It turns out that PAS has a non-New York City resident membership that does not come with in-person High Holiday tickets. For someone who spends most weekends and summers (i.e., Shabbat and holidays) on Kent Island, that was a perfect fit.

PAS has truly mastered digital media. They make going to shul easy and accessible to everyone, regardless of status or wealth. The message on PAS’s streaming page invites you to “share this page with your community or anyone in need of spiritual uplifting.” The price of admission is open to all. That’s important when one considers how expensive it is to run a modern synagogue operation. Clearly, those of us who have the means need to support PAS. It’s a fair thing to do. For me, watching for free was simply not an option.

One of my favorite services from PAS is the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service welcoming the arrival of the sabbath. The headline on the PAS website that highlights “This Shabbat” is so well done: “Every 7th Day. 52 Weeks A Year. Since Creation.” That brilliant line engages and reminds us that Jews have been celebrating Shabbat forever.

Early in my PAS online experience, I was watching the service one Friday evening on our front porch on Kent Island via Facebook Live on my phone. Viewers were wishing each other, “Shabbat Shalom,” from destinations around the globe.

Imagine my surprise when a greeting appeared that said, “Shabbat Shalom from Kent Island, Md.” After I did a double-take, I looked to see the smiling profile picture of a middle-aged woman.

Now that’s a heck of a coincidence. Here were two people watching services via Facebook Live from a New York City synagogue, and both of us happened to be on Kent Island, the largest island in the Chesapeake Bay.

I responded to her greeting with a similar greeting. It turned out she lived on the other side of the island on a horse farm. She ended up friending me, and we messaged about meeting up in person once the pandemic was over. Sadly, she passed away from cancer several months later. (May her memory be for a blessing.) We really do live in a small world.

Sensational Stats

PAS — which has been streaming services since 2014 and has a membership of 1,800 family units — saw 100% growth over this past year with its non-NYC resident membership.

While it’s difficult to count each person (or more) behind a screen, I’m going to refer to each statistic below in terms of the number of devices as identified by PAS Live Stream .

Over the past ten months I’ve observed:

Rabbi Elliot Cosgorve, PhD, Senior Rabbi, Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky
(Left to Right) Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, PhD, Senior Rabbi, Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky during Park Avenue Synagogue Live Stream.

• 18,000 devices for Kol Nidre;
• 9,500 devices on Yom Kippur;
• 1,400 devices for the Purim play and Megillah reading;
• 850 devices on average streaming Kabbalat Shabbat, and another 70-plus on Facebook Live;
• 1,400 devices for Yizkor memorial service on the last day of Passover;
• and 1,000 devices on average for a Shabbat morning service.

In early February I participated in a new member orientation, an intimate Zoom gathering with nine new congregants and three PAS staff members. It was a casual 45 minutes where we all introduced ourselves, had the opportunity to ask questions and were honored by the presence of Rabbi Elliot J. Cosgrove, PAS’s senior rabbi.

A Jewish Theological Seminary graduate with a doctorate in Bible Studies from the University of Chicago, Rabbi Cosgrove has the uncanny ability to connect with a virtual audience, and his warmth and engaging personality are clearly present, along with his dynamic intellect.

The geographic makeup of the group really surprised me. The two couples from New York City made perfect sense, but the new members from California (two), Ohio, Washington, D.C., Maine and Florida (three) surprised me.

All of us who were on the Zoom meeting that day were paid members, and the majority of us did not live within 300 miles of New York City. It’s clear to me that I was not the only one who was attracted to the unique value proposition of shul-by-Zoom, broadcast from the Upper East Side.

Yes, you can build an online relationship with your rabbi. It’s not easy but like anything worthwhile in life, you have to work at it. I’ve gotten to know Rabbi Cosgrove through email, phone calls, Zoom services, classes and events. Just after the holidays, I emailed him to share my background and my reasons for joining. Maybe the dad-for-a-rabbi-thing clicked with him, but he suggested an introductory call. What a lovely gesture.

When my stepfather-in-law passed away in January, I emailed Rabbi Cosgrove, who called within the hour to ask for my wife’s cell and left her a condolence message. With some recent family health issues, Rabbi Cosgrove has been there by phone and email to support me. I’ll be forever appreciative of that.

Of course, you can’t successfully run a large synagogue like PAS with just one rabbi. Rabbis Neil Zuckerman and Ethan H. Witofsky, with the support of a rabbinic fellow and intern, add a depth that most synagogues simply don’t have.

Part of what makes a great synagogue is the cantor. If music is your thing, then the cantors at PAS will lift your soul and spirits with their davening and stunning voices. Senior Cantor Azi Schwartz, an internationally known, Israeli-born chazzan, is a joy to listen to. If you relish a world-class cantor, then be sure to visit his YouTube page.

Even though I belong to PAS, I continue to support the local Jewish community. I am a proud, multi-year donor to The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore and an enthusiastic supporter of Hillel at Towson University, my alma mater. The work The Associated does to support our community is exemplarily, especially during the pandemic. My involvement with Jmore is a great source of pride to me. We need strong and local ownership of Jewish media to help inform and connect our community.

When it comes to the survival of our local synagogues, nothing could be more important. I’d even like to join one again, perhaps as an affiliate member.

Rabbi Cosgrove feels strongly that we all need to support our local shuls. Virtual memberships don’t have to necessarily cancel out the bricks-and-mortar concept or physical attendance of services. It can be complementary.

If our synagogues are not only to survive but to become dynamic and vibrant centers of Jewish community, then all of us who have a vested interest in that effort must encourage and demand that 21st-century technologies become the norm for synagogues. Virtual services, classes and lectures can engage and uplift communities and the unaffiliated.

The future has arrived, and we must all embrace it.

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