Op-Ed: “Covid has not Created a Shul/Davening Problem, but it has Revealed One” By: Pesach Sommer

As long as one could see his friends and socialize after davening, and get some cholent and schnapps after davening, or sadly, at the kiddush club, there was a willingness to show up to shul. Add in a strong social expectation, and whatever issues that one had with shul and davening were overcome.

Now, the food and drink are gone, and it has become acceptable to daven at an outdoor minyan, or alone at home. In the outdoor minyan, davening is shorter, they may be no Kerias HaTorah, and there is no derasha. When davening at home, you get to decide when it starts and what is said.

Of course, at some point, Covid will end, and a strong majority of people will return to shul. Still I think it’s a mistake to not think about what’s being shown here.

I often reflect on the joy that is present when for one reason or another, Tachanun is not said. One might think, seeing the joy that is expressed, that people hate Tachanun. I don’t think this is true. I think most people don’t like davening, but the other parts aren’t negotiable.

I don’t think it’s a Biur Tefillah issue, as even in Israel, where people understand the words, these same problems exist.

To me, it comes down to a problem relating to Hashem and seeing tefillah as meaningful.
I don’t think it is a tragedy if one leaves 12 years of Jewish education and doesn’t want to learn Gemara, assuming that some form of Talmud Torah continues. I do think it’s a tragedy if one never davens again. Still, schools spend much time teaching Gemara (successfully or not), but little, if any, time teaching davening, beyond say this, stand here, bow here.

Even worse, most mechanchim can’t or won’t talk about God. Whereas Chazal saw aggadeta as the place to encounter HKBH, most yeshivas don’t teach it. Litvish rabbinical training, including RIETS spends lots of time on Gemara and Halacha, and little if any meaningful time on hashkafa and machashava.

During normal times, the extant of this failure is less obvious. Now, during Covid, it stares us in the face asking what, if anything, we will do about it.