In a world flipped upside down by the rapid spread of COVID-19, something previously as simple as participating in the warmth of a communal Shabbat meal has become impossible. With more and more people under strict self-isolation—especially those 65 years and over, whom health officials are warning to remain home at all costs for the sake of their lives—even heading out to a neighborhood store to pick up challah, a bottle of wine and food for the day of rest has become an impossibly complicated, even dangerous chore.

And it’s lonely, too. With the nerve centers of Jewish communal experience closed for the time being, the need for friendship and social interaction has become something of a pandemic in itself.

That’s why Rabbi Bentzi and Rochie Sudak, co-directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Hampstead Garden Suburb in London, knew that as Shabbat approached they needed to do something. Working in partnership with Hampton Garden Suburb Synagogue, commonly known as Norrice Lea, and with the help of local Jewish community volunteers, they put together a care package including challah, wine and an inspirational booklet for Shabbat. By Friday morning all 100 care packages were delivered to the homes of elderly or vulnerable Jewish community members in the neighborhood.

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“Isolation doesn’t have to mean loneliness,” says Rabbi Sudak, who is also one of the leaders of Chabad-Lubavitch UK. “It is especially at times like these that we need the closeness and support that community offers, we just can’t experience it in a conventional way. Jewish wisdom teaches us that the real person is not the body but the soul. We are learning how we can in fact connect in deep, meaningful ways even when we’re not in physical proximity.”

Aside for the local Shabbat care package distribution, Sudak says that Chabad emissaries throughout the United Kingdom, who met via Zoom earlier this week, are in the midst of preparing for a massive Passover-at-home campaign throughout the country.

“We are working with printers for boxes, food distributors for the box’s contents, and we will be sending out thousands of Passover kits,” he says. “We can’t go to synagogue? We’re going to bring Judaism home.”

Chabad’s Smile on Seniors program in Phoenix created a Shabbat experience in a package that included a complete dinner.

The vital need for simple connection, community and a familiar Shabbat experience is always present in a place as distant as Accra, Ghana, whose multi-national Jewish community has been served by Rabbi Noach and Alti Majesky, co-directors of Chabad of Ghana since 2015. Already living in faraway Ghana, the West African nation’s Jews now find themselves stuck at home, an isolation within an isolation.

The Majeskys therefore prepared more than 100 Shabbat care packages, all of them including challah and many of them including multicourse Shabbat meals. “We want every Jew in this country to know we are here for them—that we care, that our community is stronger than ever,” says Alti Majesky.

“Early this week, most of our families left the country,” her husband, Rabbi Majesky, explains. “We usually have services, and a full course Kiddush, and for many regulars, our home is a jump spot away from the hustle and bustle of African life.

“We’re continuing Hebrew school online every day, sending these Shabbat care packages to the Jews who remain here, and sent chocolate and a different type of care package to the mothers and children who have in the last weeks left for Israel.”