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If a Zoom minyan reads torah (without blessings, as study), should the reader still chant?
Due to the pandemic some communities are having weekday services on Zoom. (There seem to be leniencies that support this. That is not what this question is about.) We can't read from the torah scroll except in the presence of a minyan, and the communities I know about who are meeting on Zoom are holding by that and not having a torah service. However, some of them are studying torah at that place in the service by having somebody read the day's aliyot, without the blessings.
Assuming this torah-study approach is permitted in a service in the first place (and if it's not, please address that), my question is: is there a preference either for or against the reader chanting the portion publicly? On the one hand, chanting might be an enhancement and thus a benefit. On the other hand, chanting it when we're not actually reading torah from the scroll as part of a torah service might mislead or confuse people. (This concern doesn't arise if you are chanting in your private torah study.) On the third hand, we chant the Sh'ma, which is torah text too, outside of any torah service and in public, so maybe people are expected to pay attention to context and we needn't be concerned with the appearance of having a torah service.
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This is one of the places where I see the dictate that "the Rabbi is the arbiter of Jewish law for the local community" kicking in with some vigor -- different Rabbis are taking different approaches, based on the spiritual needs of their community, the advancement of scientific knowledge, and the health status of the local region.
I've seen a variety of approaches to this, (in Conservative shuls) all with different Talmudic and Rabbinic justification. I have not seen anyone use an actual Sefer Torah for their Torah study, nor have I seen aliyot.
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