Easter and Passover are here. Ramadan is on the horizon. Graduations and canceled proms are ahead. What are we all supposed to do?
Hello! We’re all trying to keep human gatherings meaningful in an age of isolation. You can keep up with our new podcast “Together Apart” on Apple or Spotify. Our host is Priya Parker, a professional conflict facilitator and the author of “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters.” We asked Priya to talk to us about how to make sense of holiday gatherings this week.
The first thing to do is to pause and ask: What is it that my community most needs right now? Why is it that we gather around this holiday? And how might we gather this year in a way that addresses the current need?
In some cases, that might mean turning off every screen and finding a way to mark this holiday with the people you are quarantined with. In other cases, it might mean hosting a virtual Passover that’s bigger than any other year you’ve hosted, in part because people don’t have to get on a plane or get a babysitter or drive two hours to your home.
The table, the food, the script isn’t the purpose of the gathering. The need the community is trying to fulfill is the real heart of the gathering. And this year, we get to think more deeply about that question to really ask ourselves: What is essential?
Tell us about Ellen, who you spoke to in this week’s episode of “Together Apart,” and her plans for Passover this week.
Ellen is a woman who has been participating in a Passover Seder with a group of 40 people, in person, for over 35 years. She’s part of a community of friends and family that come together yearly, from all around the country, for Seder. And this is the first year where they can’t actually gather physically.
It used to be at someone’s home, and then it got too big and they took over a restaurant. And they developed a relationship with that restaurant, and held Passover at the same restaurant every year. This year they clearly can’t do that. And she and her co-hosts said, “OK, we’re going digital this year.”
What were her biggest worries?
Her biggest worries were: How do you make it still feel intimate when everyone’s apart? How do you perform these rituals in the same way? What do you bring when you can’t bring food for each other? And how do people feel connected?
It’s the time of year we catch up on people’s lives and children, and this happens in the interstitial moments. How do you catch up with different folks when you can’t mill around a room?
You say that the invite to this Seder was brilliant. How so?
It told a story. It didn’t just communicate the date, time and place of the event; it does so much more. We think invites are just to convey logistics. But invitations are the opening salvo of a social contract. The invitation told that story. “In many years past, we’ve always gathered in person.” They wrote: “Clearly we will not have a problem answering the question why is this Seder different from all other Seders.” They brought people along.
The host begins hosting from the moment they send an invite. An invite is a priming device. It says, “I’m going to be creating this temporary alternative world.” Through that story she reminded them of years past, how meaningful it was throughout the years. And they named the need. And they gave a solution: This year, when we can’t come together, why don’t we try something different? Why don’t we try this on Zoom?
This invitation did a lot of work. It told a story and brought it along with her. And it used humor.
We’re talking really positively about gathering digitally. What are the less obvious dangers of Zoom for digital gatherings?
Apart from the obvious ways to think about staying safe, the power dynamics are different. For better or worse, it’s not as easy to interrupt a Zoom call as it is an in-person gathering. It’s very difficult, if you don’t have control of the mute button, to change a gathering, particularly as a guest!
I think, overall, guests have less power in most Zoom gatherings than we do in in-person gatherings. It’s hard to say, “Hey, can we do it another way?” It’s also easier to be checked out, or distracted. We’re not all in the same room and everyone has a different context around them. A lot of us are on video calls all day and you can have Zoom fatigue! And we’re missing a lot of the physical ways we interact. And smell, and taste! This is an opportunity to invent around this.
Can you give an example of creating a new ritual on Zoom?
I spoke recently to the TriFaith Initiative, an intentionally co-located group of congregations of Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths in Omaha. I spoke to 400 of their community members last week over Zoom about gathering while we’re apart. And someone brought up the question of smell. How do we bring in our senses into our gatherings, even while we’re apart?
I believe this is a moment where we can create rituals to create a common experience even while we’re apart. For example, if you’re wanting to create an opening moment or ritual for your group to all have the same sensorial experience at the same time to mark a beginning, invite everyone to bring cinnamon (or nutmeg!) to their computer, at the outset of the meal and all smell a pinch of it together at the same time. (It can be any flavor that represents your food, or community, or this moment in time.) We are at the very beginning of inventing different ways to be apart, together.
