One of the Unintended Consequences of the Pandemic
I spent some time this morning on a Zoom call called SongSwap. It has become a monthly feature presented by the Cantors’ Assembly, a constituent member of the Conservative movement in American Judaism. I was originally interested in the program because of our own local Israeli Café, by which the members of Congregation B’nai Israel submit favorite Israeli, Yiddish, Ladino, of Jewish songs from anywhere. We had our first event way back at the beginning of the pandemic shutdowns and it has successfully continued monthly since then. We have consistently attracted quite a few participants. So, when I saw this SongSwap, I was wondering how much alike or different it was from our program.
I was amazed at what it actually ended up being. Instead of submitting videos or songs or both like ours is, this was live presentations of music written by any number of cantors or rabbis or Jewish educators themselves and they presented their work themselves. So, really what it is and has been, obviously, is a group of musicians sharing their work, the one with the other, except this was over 125 others, mostly young, mostly American, but I am sure from other places as well. They were presenting musical variations on prayers that are an essential part of our services. For example, today, the two hosts were talking about a Lech Dodi challenge, whereby they were inviting 49 variations on the traditional Kabbalat Shabbat prayer.
What struck me first was how far we have come from the days of Debbie Freedman and Shlomo Carlebach, whose compositions have become part of the standard repertoire in synagogues or all stripes and varieties. But then I went on to imagine what might have been if they had had a medium to share their compositions more widely. Their prayer melodies have become standard because they spread through the summer camp programs. Young people, after all, are not married to tradition the way their elders are and so the catchy tunes to familiar prayers soon replaced the staid old cantorial favorites and rightly so.
But Zoom technology which has rapidly overtaken synchronous video and oral communications online has blossomed and improved so quickly that now it is used to connect communities of like – minded people all over the globe. That in turn has resulted in multiple new ways not just communicating but creating as well. No matter what field of endeavour, we are constantly being bombarded by articles expounding on new ways of overcoming formidable barriers to networking. Doctors using Artificial Intelligence and Zoom to help surgeons-in-training perfect their skills regardless of location. Educators writing about ways to use Zoom for just-in-time professional development on any variety of topics. Teachers using Zoom to connect learners in any two locations to collaborate online in any number of ways.
It has become de rigeur to advocate for opportunities to collaborate and create with students we teach because that is how they best learn and how we can hope that they will benefit society in the future. Often, it takes an obstacle to prompt ways to overcome and enhance what has been done for any length of time. I remember reading a book about the unintended consequences of technology in which the author looked at inventions or creations that were seminal at the time and that have profoundly affected how we saw the world or interacted ever after. Who would have thought that the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in the United States would lead to the Industrial Revolution in England or the identification of the double helix structure of d. n. a. by Watson and Crick to the medical marvel that are the new vaccines to combat Covid-19? The unintended consequences of Zoom have led to a flowering of creativity which has further solidified the global community and hopefully to the bringing of mankind closer together, never to rent asunder again.
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