Articles

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Prayer is a very personal and individual activity; each person’s experience is unique. Nevertheless, prayer, especially synagogue prayer, is also a communal experience. It occurs in a group and includes prayers that can only be recited in a quorum (minyan).

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     I’d like to begin by quoting to you a passage from Rabbi David Hartman, from his book, The Living Covenant. He writes:

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I first started going to daily minyan for one selfish reason. I simply wanted to be with my husband. Three days after getting married, we were in our new home, and my husband awoke early for minyan. He was getting up, so I got up too. I certainly wasn’t ready to be apart from him, so I accompanied him to the synagogue. It was my first early morning weekday minyan.

The way most of us pray today is very different from the way prayer was originally intended. I share the opinion that what goes on in most Jewish “houses of prayer” of whatever community, denomination, sect, or form, is usually far from an exciting, uplifting spiritual experience.