“It is not good for man to be alone” – already in the parshiot of creation does the Torah note the tremendous difficulty of being alone. Man is a social creature, and an integral part of his personal identity, ability to confront the world, and actualization of the life within him – is the face-to-face interaction with his partner, family, and society. Deficiency in any of these is addressed lightly in this verse, however it is intensified with the expression that appears in Chazal’s aggadot regarding Choni HaMa’agel, who says “either companionship or death”, and preferred to depart of this world rather than stay in isolation.

Amongst us live lonely people. Loneliness can be a deep and terrifying life experience even for those found amongst the masses, and the opposite is true as well – “alone” does not necessarily mean “lonely”. It is not a byproduct of age, and people experience loneliness at any stage of life. However, many among us, primarily very elderly individuals, experience a loneliness that deteriorates into deep depression, loss of will to live, significant fatigue, unrelenting longing for others, and an extremely difficult reality that at times endangers their lives and at times even causes them to do dangerous actions in order to break through these barriers.

On the other hand, the sanctity of Shabbat and holidays is engrained within the deepest existential roots of the Jewish nation. One of the most significant characteristics of the Day of Rest is the holy and crucial disconnection from all screens, which are ever present in our everyday lives. Bringing screens to the Seder Night causes damage from which the holiness is difficult to recover. Not only this, but at times it can also impact a person’s mental health, because it expresses to the lonely the notion that we do not have the ability to face the challenges and remain steadfast to traditional halacha.

This is the great deliberation of the halachic authorities: considering the unilateral position that from a medical perspective it is prohibited, genuinely prohibited, for the elderly to come to the family Seder due to the fact that it is not only risking their lives but significantly risking the greater public; and considering the fact that leaving them alone is absolutely heart wrenching, and even if there is a personal risk and risk that due to lack of ability to uphold this they may come to the family Seder night against explicit directions – what is proper to do so that on one hand their humanity is preserved, especially considering that halacha determines that a doubtful case of pikuach nefesh displaces many prohibitions, and on the other hand that the sanctity of Shabbat and the essence of the Seder night not be shaken for generations to come.

The culture of disagreement in Israel is also expressed in this matter, and in the Rabbinic world there are opinions in both directions. One can say that the majority opinion follows four fundamental principles: first is the recognition of the fear and severe impact of loneliness as well as not ignoring the risks involved with it; second is the recognition of the supreme importance of the sanctity of holidays; third is abstaining from making sweeping halachic rulings that everything is permissible on the Seder night, as well as leaving an opening, whose width is a matter of disagreement, for heterim to use digital media when dealing with potential cases of pikuach nefesh.

And the fourth – and most important: the responsibility of each and every one of us to search for more and more creative ways to lighten the great burden of being left alone. When we are dealing with the Seder night, there have been many attempts to organize a sort of early Seder via digital means, even before Pesach has begun that carries no halachic significance. This does not exempt from making a Seder at night, but it provides a deep experience of togetherness. There is also much creativity possible when creating a Seder without digitalization, such as letters that must be opened at different parts of the Haggadah, etc. However, beyond the Seder night – we should accept the humane, familial, and moral responsibility to perform all in our power to locate those isolated in our environment and try to soften the blow of this difficult experience that they are experiencing now. This is the primary moral position that we must conduct ourselves by in this time.