Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, head shliach and rov in Budapest, Hungary, held a Yizkor ceremony on Zoom complete with Sefer Torah and sermon.
By Anash.org staff
These days, with corona still claiming victims, lo aleinu, people are staying home, but Shluchim are anything but complacent.
Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, head shliach and rov of Budapest, Hungary, maintains many shiurim each day in his “Virtual Beis Medrash.” Rabbi Oberlander gives a daily Daf Yomi shiur on Zoom in Hebrew and Rabbi Shlomo Koves gives the daf shiur in Hungarian. There is also a virtual shul in Budapest, with a Zoom “minyan.”
Pesach rituals were also carried out online. In fact, this year many more people sold their chometz using the online option. On Erev Pesach, they had a Zoom siyum mesechta for bechorim.
But what about Yizkor which is supposed to take place on Acharon shel Pesach?
Rabbi Oberlander told Anash.org:
“Yizkor is of extreme importance for people here in Hungary. We couldn’t do Yizkor on Chol Hamoed since it’s in the middle of Yomtov. So we did Yizkor online on Motzoei Yomtov at 9:00 pm. Many, many Jews joined us. We had the usual pre-Yizkor sermon and took out the sefer Torah as we usually would.
The psak to allow a siyum on zoom, Rabbi Oberlander said, was “based on what the posek Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach wrote that one may listen to a siyum via telephone since it’s a minhag and not a mitzvah like hearing the megillah, which would not be allowed via Zoom.”
“May Hashem help that we continue our work in bringing Jews back to their father in heaven,” he concluded.