Here’s the painful letter he wrote to his congregants
Dear BKNW,
I am writing to you through tears. The situation in the world today is extraordinarily painful, and when Jews are in pain, we daven to Hashem. Tefilah is a חיוב דאורייתא according to all ראשונים when we are in an עת צרה. This moment in time qualifies as an עת צרה. There is no way to properly assess the value of תפלה בציבור and תפלה בבית הכנסת. It is powerful and the only way we know to help us through difficult times.
Having said that, with new information coming out each minute, it has become clear that having groups of people congregate in shul (and קל וחומר in homes which are more confined) is recklessly dangerous. Based on the guidance of many infectious disease specialist (who are well aware of the כח התפלה and its value in our community), and based on the unequivocal psak of my great rebbe הגאון הרב שכטר שליט”א, I am terribly sad to inform you that our beloved shul where we reach out to Hashem through tefilah and torah, will be closed for Shabbos.
Please understand how serious this decision is, and that it was not taken lightly by any of the community rabbonim who spent hours talking to medical professionals and gedolei haposkim (and each other). The prospect of taking away our most potent weapon to fight disease and yisurin, the כח התפלה, absolutely terrifies me. Yet, Hashem wants us to be מוסר נפש. Sometimes מסירות נפש involves giving up money, sometimes it involves giving up our lives, but in this case it is the most painful form of מסירות נפש – giving up our ability to reach out to Hashem in the best way possible. The גמרא in the beginning of מס’ ברכות tells us that יסורין that involve ביטול תפלה are most certainly NOT יסורין של אהבה.
My dear and beloved friends, we have to make sure that there is no ביטול תפלה even as we are forced into ביטול תפלה בציבור. PLEASE make sure to daven b’zman, daven slowly, daven together with your children, daven with deep and serious כונה, daven out loud (one may even daven שמונה עשרה out loud when davening ביחידות and when davening with בני ביתו to model proper tefilah). I think it is best if we all daven at the same time tonight and tomorrow. Let us keep our regular minyan times, just while davening at home.
It is our collective tefilah that Hashem should hear our tefilos and welcome us back into His home where we can connect to Him properly. May this time away give us a greater appreciation of the great gift of tefilah b’tzibur.
הכותב בדמעה וברעדה,
אריה ליבוביץ
