By Rabbi Dovid M. Cohen

Last summer, my family and I traveled to the Poconos for a vacation. For logistical reasons, we planned to spend Shabbos by ourselves and without a minyan. Although I couldn’t recall ever missing Shabbos minyan, we set out on this vacation without a Shabbos minyan option.

The entire week I was racked with guilt. I called various friends in surrounding areas (within an hour or so drive of our rental home) to discern where we might spend Shabbos. It was challenging to negotiate an accommodation with a large family. It looked like it would be my first Shabbos without a minyan.

It didn’t sit well with me. However, it would be complicated for my entire family to drive home mid-trip and then back just for my minyan.

Hashem thankfully rewarded my efforts. Friday morning, I arrived at the local minyan about a ten-minute drive from where we were staying (there was a weekday minyan but no Shabbos minyan). Surprisingly, there were some new faces there. One of them lived in my community, recognized me and came to say hello.

He shared that he was celebrating his in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary and that his extended family comprised a minyan. They even brought a Sefer Torah with them and had a ba’al koreh. After some quick work on Google maps, we discerned that it would be only a little over an hour’s walk for me to join their minyan.

A Shabbos minyan appeared out of thin air. When you want something of sanctity badly enough, magical things can happen.

Fast-forward a little bit.

Many of us missed Shabbos minyan for three months straight, including Pesach and Shavuos. What was once unimaginable and gave me such agita had become the “new normal”’ Full disclosure: I became extremely comfortable davening without a minyan. It was enjoyable on multiple levels. The start time, the pace, the niggunim, and lack of aliyos and mishebeirachs were to my liking.

I had heard anecdotally of certain gedolei Yisrael who would regularly daven without a minyan. Frankly, I found this difficult. We have a plethora of sources that encourage davening with a minyan as obligatory and as the most effective way to have prayers answered. I just couldn’t understand why these luminaries davened alone.

Many years ago, I spent a Shabbos by the home of R’ Yisroel Reisman, the revered rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. My friend brought me along as a second wheel to spend a personal Shabbos with the Rosh Yeshiva. My friend was entrenched in shidduchim at the time (I had just started dating my wife), and the Rosh Yeshiva was one of my friend’s regular references. The Rosh Yeshiva mentioned in passing that when called as a reference he would always share what an extraordinary “davener” and how makpid on minyan my friend was.

My friend was mortified. He pleaded with the Rosh Yeshiva to share what a great learner he is in the future. He reasoned that sharing how he davens implies that he isn’t a good learner. The Rosh Yeshiva answered that he never actually talked with my friend in learning, but he observed the intensity of his davening a number of times.

The Gemara in Berachos says that prayer is something that stands at the loftiest heights and yet people don’t fully appreciate its impact. It was striking that my friend was begging to de-emphasize his uniqueness in prayer because it pointed to a perceived weakness in the more valued category of learning.

If there is an area of religious life most impacted by the coronavirus, I would venture to guess it is the area of communal prayer. Although tragic, the pandemic provided an opportunity to reevaluate what exactly prayer is and what specifically is the value of communal prayer.

I rarely recited the entirety of Pesukei D’Zimra pre-pandemic. This section of prayer is the warmup to enable a transition to the “main course.” In lomdus, it is referred to as a “matir,” a permission to speak to Hashem more intimately.

When praying communally, sacrifices need to be made. We need to be there on time or risk missing the festivities. Getting to minyan involves efforts to travel to the requisite location. More often than not, a daily minyan can be a runaway train with some participants desperately trying to keep up. The opportunity for a reboot was a chance to break the cycle. To be reminded what the encounter of tefillah truly is.

In the early days of COVID-19, it was impossible for me to hold back my tears. The pure confusion of the times coupled with the constant devastating news was debilitating. Fear was in the air and prayer was a place to share those inner feelings of trepidation.

I once heard a fascinating philosophical explanation as to why we use a mechitzah when praying. Prayer is meant to be a realization that we are alone in this world with the Creator of the Universe. It is difficult to create this union with God while sitting next to the person who supports us the most in this world. A spouse supporting us in prayer is the antithesis of the feeling of “aloneness” we yearn to create.

On this level, being forced to pray in the confines of the home, the banishment from community, enabled a more realistic perspective on this critical relationship. There is no hiding behind the community or even reciting the special sections of “devarim she’b’kedushah” reserved for a minyan.

Yet, despite these compelling points, prayer is intended to be expressed in a communal setting. For many of us, this loss of communal prayer was devastating. For some so much that they refused to follow communal norms and insisted on staying open throughout the pandemic. What is it about the communal prayer that makes it the most potent for engagement with Hashem?

I’d like to suggest it is the sacrificial aspect that makes it so valuable in Hashem’s eyes. The need to conform one’s own needs to the greater good. That although an individual may possibly obtain a deep connection with Hashem alone, the highest level of commitment is to curtail that relationship for the betterment of others.

To participate in the communal experience of prayer is to feel needed and relied upon. This is true no matter the size of your minyan. Each individual present at minyan strengthens the others and bolsters their prayers. When we make the sacrifices to ensure this happens, Hashem then enables us to praise him in ways that we are unable when alone.

Prayer actually replaced sacrifices, according to one opinion in the Gemara Berachos. According to the Ramban, the animal replaces the human as the sacrifice. We were intended to place ourselves on the altar. It is only apropos that we make individual “sacrifices” to come together in prayer with others.

This is why the Akeidah is so central in Jewish liturgy. It plays such a critical role in the Rosh Hashanah service because it is a reminder that Hashem values the subjugation of our will to His higher will. Hashem constricts or limits Himself (tzimzum) in the creation of the world, and we emulate Him by also constricting or limiting our easier or possibly preferred prayer experience so that we can pray with others.

This echoes the approach of the sefer Ta’amei HaMinhagim as to the special mitzvah to eat on erev Yom Kippur. He posits that the soul has no desire to eat on such an auspicious day. We’d rather spend the special day preceding the Yom HaGadol engaged in teshuvah. Instead, we force ourselves to eat (seemingly against our will) only because Hashem asks us to.

This idea is also expressed in the concept of a Chassidic master or Rebbe. The Rebbe nullifies his own service or individual spiritual aspirations and gives himself over totally to the chassidim.

The Baal Hafla’ah has a beautiful insight into the Chazal that one’s rebbe must be like an angel. He explains that an angel doesn’t grow or move. In contrast to humans, angels have a single defined task. A rebbe, too, must be completely devoted to his students. The rebbe has to be single mindedly focused on his students, leaving almost no room at all to think about his own personal growth. If a rebbe lacks this quality, one shouldn’t study Torah from him.

So, my friend actually had it wrong. Rabbi Reisman was doing him a tremendous favor. He was actually telling various young ladies that he would make an excellent husband! After all, he made the sacrifice to daven meticulously with a minyan. That implies that he was capable of putting others before himself. What a perfect quality to have in a husband. Sadly, my friend, as many others, missed the beautiful praise the Rosh Yeshiva was bestowing upon him.

May we merit to continue making the requisite sacrifices to strengthen our communities in communal prayer. May Hashem, in the merit of our efforts, hear our tefillos and put an end to this terrible plague.

Rabbi Dovid M. Cohen is the rav of Congregation Ohr Torah in North Woodmere and a senior relationship officer at the Orthodox Union. He maintains a private therapy practice in the Five Towns area. He is the author of the book “We’re Almost There: Living with Patience, Perseverance and Purpose,” published by Mosaica Press in 2016, presenting a pathway for confronting life’s challenges.

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