A guf without a neshama: A case study in how to falsify the Torah

Peninei Halacha is a good halacha sefer: concise, clear, well-structured, well-researched and admirably honest about stating where its conclusions are derived from, and where there is ambiguity.

Except when it isn’t. And these cases are quite instructive because they reveal a lot about the id of contemporary mainstream orthodox Judaism. So let’s cut to the chase (תפילה: פרק ב:א): 

אמרו חכמים שהתפילה שאדם מתפלל עם הציבור מתקבלת, שנאמר (תהלים נה, יט): “פָּדָה בְשָׁלוֹם נַפְשִׁי מִקְּרָב לִי כִּי בְרַבִּים הָיוּ עִמָּדִי”. וגם כשלא כוונו כל כך בתפילתם, אין הקב”ה מואס בתפילתם של רבים (ברכות ח, א). ואף שכל תפילה שנאמרת בעשרה חשובה יותר ומתקבלת, עיקר התפילה בציבור הוא שעשרה מישראל יתפללו ביחד תפילת שמונה עשרה.

The claim that one who prays with a minyan will have his prayer accepted, even if he doesn’t have kavanah is simultaneously bold, and also also cutely pusillanimous leaving that כל כך dangling to maintain plausible deniability. However, we shouldn’t not jump the gun. The Peninei Halacha cites a source, so let’s look at it:

רבי נתן אומר: מנין שאין הקדוש ברוך הוא מואס בתפלתן של רבים שנאמר: ״הן אל כביר ולא ימאס״, וכתיב: ״פדה בשלום נפשי מקרב לי״

Straight away we notice something weird. The source kind of  seems to say what it’s been quoted as saying: G-d doesn’t reject the prayer of the rabim. But then it stops. There is something missing, namely the important bit: where does it say anything about not having kavanah כל כך? The Peninei Halacha doesn’t cite any mefarshim who explain the gemara this way, and for good reason, because there aren’t any. So where does it come from? Let us be as charitable as we can and explain the logic like this:

1. The gemara says G-d does not reject the prayer of the rabim.
2. This implies G-d sometimes rejects the prayer of individuals.
3. But why would G-d reject the prayer of an individual? Maybe it’s because he didn’t pray with kavanah. 
4. So the gemara must be telling you that even if you didn’t pray with kavanah, G-d will accept it if you prayed with a minyan.

The thing here is that the key assumption in (3) is completely extraneous to the gemara and could be replaced with literally thousands of assumptions that, from a logical perspective, are just as valid. For example:

1. The gemara says G-d does not reject the prayer of the rabim.
2. This implies G-d sometimes rejects the prayer of individuals.
3. But why would G-d reject the prayer of an individual? Maybe it’s because he prayed in his boxer shorts while downing vodka shots.
4. So the gemara must be telling you that even if you pray in your boxer shorts while downing vodka shots, G-d will accept it if you prayed with a minyan.

And – hey presto – we have just ‘proved’ that if you go to a minyan you can pray your boxer shorts while downing vodka shots (but maybe not כל כך) and your prayer will be accepted. But we don’t have to stop there.

1. The gemara says G-d does not reject the prayer of the rabim.
2. This implies G-d sometimes rejects the prayer of individuals.
3. But why would G-d reject the prayer of an individual? Maybe because he was torturing small children
4. So the gemara must be telling you that even if you pray while torturing small children, G-d will accept it if you prayed with a minyan.

It might sound strange to you, but a gemara’s a gemara. It’s right there in black and white.

But of course, you know that’s not true. The gemara doesn’t mean you can do literally anything and have your prayer accepted. You can’t take every aggadic statement autistically and just permit yourself whatever you want. You have to read with common sense, awareness of context and rhetoric, and understanding of the basic principles of tefilah.

Well, yes, duh even. If you accept the above, then you have also demonstrated why praying with a minyan doesn’t get you a kavanah pass because kavanah is an obligatory part of prayer. It’s somewhat demeaning even to have to prove this (like demonstrating that it isn’t muttar to eat pork if you are wearing a panama hat) but if you insist you can check here, here, here, here and here for starters.

So what’s up? Leo Strauss had a theory that if you are reading a book and it seems well-written enough, and the author suddenly says something obviously wrong he is trying to communicate to you a message that the casual reader will not notice. Maybe that’s the case here, but more likely it’s because of what everyone knows: no-one has any kavanah. Day after day after day, people go to schul and literally just mumble a bunch of words as fast as they can to keep up with everyone else doing the same and then leave, only to do it all over again later at mincha. It’s obvious why someone who is committed to the principle that Judaism today is basically OK – maybe needing a few tweaks or two, but fundamentally in good shape – would feel a desperate need to explain why this is fine, so desperate that they may literally hallucinate ridiculous okimtas into aggadata to justify this to themselves. If you will it, is no dream. After all, if you actually believe kavanah is important, and you’re serious about this whole Judaism business, then you have a big problem, and a lot of very awkward conversations to have about what exactly everyone is doing day after day, and what the point of it all is. Well, tough: טוב מעט בכוונה מהרבה בלא כוונה and, we might add, בין ביחיד בין ברבים.