10 | JANUARY 27 • 2022
opinion
Importance of
In-Person Prayer
T
he Jan. 15 hostage
situation at
Congregation Beth
Israel in Colleyville, Texas, has
inspired many fears: that there
will be more violence directed
at synagogues,
that this
attack will fuel
Islamophobia,
that increased
policing at shuls
will harm Jews of
color.
I think there
is yet another danger, less
immediate but nonetheless
worth discussing.
As Jewish communities talk
more about security, safety
concerns may encourage
the continued migration
of services to Zoom and
discourage the resumption of
in-person collective gatherings.
When the pandemic started,
liberal and Modern Orthodox
synagogues overwhelmingly
canceled in-person services.
Such shutdowns saved lives.
Many communities began
experimenting with online
programming. For Purim
2020, I went straight from
reading the megillah in-person
at an office to reading from it
for an online broadcast, when
my Chicago congregation
canceled its large, in-person
reading.
Online services present
problems for the traditionally
observant, like me: Can one
convene a prayer quorum, or
minyan, over the internet?
Which technologies are
permissible or not on Shabbat?
Then again, Zoom services
fill important spiritual and
social needs for people stuck
alone at home. And they
even have advantages over
in-person gatherings, as
remote services are accessible
to homebound seniors and
people with disabilities
who couldn’t attend even
before the pandemic. They
allow synagogues to reach
sympathetic audiences in
far-off places. Eventually,
communities could save on
expensive, large physical
buildings. Little by little, a
stopgap measure begins to
seem appealing as a long-term
choice.
Concerns about security
will only increase this appeal.
Providing security is costly
and logistically complicated,
requiring additional staffing
and training. Moreover,
fears about hostile attackers
encourage us, as COVID-
19 does, to imagine public
in-person gatherings as
dangerous, fraught occasions.
Given the horrible attacks
on synagogues in the last five
years, what regular synagogue-
goer has never felt nervous
about security?
Moreover, we worry about a
security threat for some of the
same reasons we worry about
a virus. In-person synagogue
services are public; we let
everyone in, which means we
give up control over whom we
encounter.
Reading through an Anti-
Defamation League guide
called “Protecting Your Jewish
Institution,” I am struck by
how the word “public” is
used to signal danger: Avoid
providing directions to your
institution online because
they will be “public.” Do not
“publicize” details of a trip
too widely. Be wary of the
“security concerns created by
“going public.’”
The more the “event is
open to the public,” the higher
the risk. Security protocols,
like health protocols, involve
managing, controlling and
inherently limiting the public.
Of course, such management is
far easier over Zoom.
But that ease comes at a cost.
One reason I attend religious
services in the first place is
that they are public. Much of
our social life is not: Domestic
spaces are usually restricted to
the intimate circles of friends
and family; workplaces are
ruled by private employers;
leisure spaces frequently
require purchases to enter.
A religious teacher of
mine once said that we pray
communally to learn to
tolerate how obnoxiously other
people pray — a suggestion
I then found confusing, but
which now seems wise. Part
of the point of a synagogue is
that you do not have control,
that you are exposed to others,
that you are forced to sit next
to those you might otherwise
eschew, with whom you would
never have thought to share an
intimate, spiritual experience.
I treasure in-person
prayer for other reasons:
Participatory singing does not
work online, for instance, and
Zoom services tend to divide
communities into “performers”
and spectators.
But even if that were solved,
what is lost online is precisely
what makes synagogues
inflexible, difficult to
manage, sometimes sensorily
unpleasant or even menacing.
I remember how, when I
spent a summer abroad in a
small European community,
two men who had a long-
running personal and financial
feud would both wince and
smile when they saw each
other at Shabbat afternoon
services — because each knew
he needed the other to make a
minyan.
That uncomfortable
dependence is a benefit of
the rigid inflexibility of place-
based Jewish prayer.
A community is defined by
association with people who
will never be your friends.
Many trends in contemporary
life reduce such unpleasant
experiences: You enjoy the
food you like at your dining
table, without having to deal
with the other diners; you
exercise not in a gym, let alone
a public park, but at home with
an app; you share virtual space
with people chosen for you
individually by an algorithm.
KELLY SIKKEMA
PURELY COMMENTARY
Raphael
Magarik