Soc.Culture.Jewish Newsgroups Frequently Asked Questions and Answers URL: www.scjfaq.org/faq/09-18.html

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Question 9.18:
What is the importance of collective worship in Judaism?

Collective worship is critical in Judaism. There are actually two notions behind gathering to pray:

1. One is praying as an individual, where the others provide an environment more condusive to that prayer. This factor was even more critical before the printing press, when many people also relied on the cantor to provide the words.

2. The second is praying as a community. Not merely as a group of individuals within a community, but the community's prayer to God. After all, the covenant at Sinai (or, for non-Jews, the covenant God made with Noah as he left the ark) was with the community as a collective unit. There is a sanctity to the community that exceeds the sum of its parts.

In both issues, the communal prayer is superlative over praying alone. Of course, other factors come into play. Someone broken-heartedly praying outside their child's hospital room, speaking to God from the core of their being is still the superior prayer over one who might feel confined from fully expressing themselves in public.

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