Making schul good: A roadmap to תפילה בציבור

Why go to schul? According to Rambam, the answer is obvious:

תְּפִלַּת הַצִּבּוּר נִשְׁמַעַת תָּמִיד וַאֲפִלּוּ הָיוּ בָּהֶן חוֹטְאִים אֵין הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מוֹאֵס בִּתְפִלָּתָן שֶׁל רַבִּים. לְפִיכָךְ צָרִיךְ אָדָם לְשַׁתֵּף עַצְמוֹ עִם הַצִּבּוּר. וְלֹא יִתְפַּלֵּל בְּיָחִיד כָּל זְמַן שֶׁיָּכוֹל לְהִתְפַּלֵּל עִם הַצִּבּוּר. וּלְעוֹלָם יַשְׁכִּים אָדָם וְיַעֲרִיב לְבֵית הַכְּנֶסֶת שֶׁאֵין תְּפִלָּתוֹ נִשְׁמַעַת בְּכָל עֵת אֶלָּא בְּבֵית הַכְּנֶסֶת. וְכָל מִי שֶׁיֵּשׁ לוֹ בֵּית הַכְּנֶסֶת בְּעִירוֹ וְאֵינוֹ מִתְפַּלֵּל בּוֹ עִם הַצִּבּוּר נִקְרָא שָׁכֵן רַע:

Presumably, you want your prayer to be heard and you don’t want to be a bad neighbour, so go to schul. On the other hand, while this all sounds very nice, how well does it track with your actual experience? Think about the last 50 or so times you went to schul. Did it feel like something that would arouse God to compassion? If you had the choice, would you actually want God to hear it? Aren’t you a bit worried He might be kind of angry?

Rambam‘s unambiguous emphasis on the responsibility to pray with the tzibbur fully and faithfully reflects, as we would expect, the Talmud Bavli, in which the only thing that can trump it is the avoidance of bittul Torah. If we look a the Yerushalmi, however, especially Mesechet B’rachot, it is notable how frequently we find reports of Amoraim davening alone, or in groups far smaller than a minyan, in all sorts of locations, without the faintest indication that there was an insuperable obstacle to their attending a synagogue. Indeed, these anecdotes quite substantially outnumber those that do take place in a schul. We also find the following interesting passage:

מחלפה שיטתיה דרבי יוחנן. תמן אמר רבי אבא אמר רבי חייא בשם רבי יוחנן צריך לאדם להתפלל במקום שהוא מיוחד לתפילה. וכה אמר הכין. כאן ביחיד כאן בציבור.

From this we see the following explicit points: (1) it’s a good thing to daven privately in your home and (2) a minyan should find a regular place to daven and not some school gym. ¹. We also see something even more crucial expressed implicitly. Tefilat hayachid and tefilah b’tzibbur are different things and they have different rules. In other words, you go to schul not to do the same thing you do at home in the presence of other people, but to do something you can’t do at home at all. But what is that?

We’ll answer that question shortly, but first I want to answer a different question, one that animates most of the mekori’ist world (and, for good measure, lots of other people): why is schul so bad? The most popular answer is that it is bad because it is too long, the result of each generation cramming just one more bit of text into the service, something which seems reasonable in each case if taken in isolation, but a disaster in its cumulative effect. This is a superficially plausible answer, chiefly because the schul service genuinely is too long, and this really is a legitimate problem. It is not, however, the problem and it’s actually best understood as a (doomed) attempt to ameliorate the real issue.

Let us imagine what a typical Shabbat morning service looks like if the mekori’ist had his way: no more אין כאלהינו, no more אנעים זמירות no more אדון עולם, no more אל אדון על כל המעשים. Now, was that less lame than the typical service, or was it even more lame because you got rid of the only bits that people were participating in, or even paying any attention to? People actually like to sing the last few lines of בריך שמיה, they don’t at all like the rest, and if we take a step back, why should they? The effect of shortening the service by removing the optional parts is only to turn two and a half hours of which 80% is boredom into, maybe, at a pinch, one and half hours of >95% boredom.

I conclude that the project of fixing schul by making it shorter, as well as the closely related project of finding the magic formula of words that will make everything right, is a dead end. Instead, I propose a new twofold working diagnosis:

(1) Most of schul is being in a room with other people all mumbling stuff

(2) Most of schul is just saying the same thing you have said before over and over and over and over and over again.

The natural default state of a prayer service whose dominant elements are the above will be boring, uninspiring and, in the strict sense of the word, profane. It’s possible under these conditions, with a constant injection of energy, to escape from the black hole of lameness, but the natural tendency is to fall into it. In a familiar gambit of the Jewish intellectual, certain clever-clogs try to argue that it is precisely in its mundanity and lack of the magnificent that Jewish prayer expresses its particular genius². But I submit that if something appears to be humdrum and a bit of a mess, it’s because it is.

Let us now survey how this plays out in the major factions of orthodoxy. In Modern Orthodox and Dati Leumi synagogues, davening is, as a matter of course, simply bad. In some places, people get enough enjoyment out of the singing bits, an opportunity to chat to friends, a nice kiddush or sufficient kibuddim that its a net positive, or a at least makes the tedious service tolerable. But in a distressingly high proportion of cases, one observes people trudging to and from schul out of a grim, almost admirable in a certain tragic way, sense of duty. A growing trend is to bring a vaguely religious book, complete each section of the prayers as quickly as possible and then pull it out. Both the Bavli and Yerushalmi tell us that the bare minimum level for tefilah is ‘not to read it like a letter’, but few people would read a letter with the inattention and apathy characteristic of the typical schul.

Moving a bit up the scale, in a shtark MO or Litvish schul you will find people putting serious energy into their personal tefilah, and then pulling out a gemara when the Shatz says whatever he is saying. The next rung up is Chassidim where the group mumbling is replaced by a far more energetic mix of group wailing, whooping and grunting. Whatever this is, it is certainly less lame, and it’s no surprise that the rest of the orthodox Jewish world directs so much effort into figuring out how to replicate the energy and life of Chassidus without the weird clothes, Yiddish and remedial literacy. Finally, if you want to go all the way, you can find a group of elite kabbalists and spend hours in intense concentration, not, admittedly, on the prayers themselves, but on a hundred and one other things that are purportedly hinted at by them.

So, if you are a talented linguist and you don’t mind creating a massive cultural gulf between yourself and everyone you presently know, I’d say your best option for a decent (≠ original) schul experience is to learn Yiddish and join a Chassidus. Belz is a good option, but you do you. However, let’s say this isn’t an option, or you’re just a dreamer, is there anything that can be done?

Maybe. The start of the answer is a strategy pursued by many a young man faced with this predicament. Namely, LARPing as a Teimani. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, but perhaps the most important is that going to a Teimani schul is just so much better than going to an Ashkenazi schul; it’s actually even kind of fun. And it’s not just Teimani schuls. If you can get over certain things, Sephardi schuls are in many ways even better. The great success of the Haburah has revealed the latent market of people who would love to be Sephardi, but are extremely white and don’t believe in the Zohar. But why are their schuls so much better? In light of the above, I suggest it’s simply because much less time is spent on group mumbling, and, with this fundamental insight, it’s possible to envision a world where, not only do you not have to be that Ashkenazi guy in the Bet Kenesset, but one in which you can actually do a lot better.

I hereby present a programme for the revitalisation of תפילה בציבור. The themes of this programme are creativity, participation, variation, concentration and quality. In all cases, what I am advocating for is a RETVRN to types of prayer practised by Jews at different points in the past. However, the reason for adopting these practices is not that they are more original, it’s that they are better. Or, at least, I think it’s worth giving it a shot. Let’s go through a typical Shabbos Shacharis.

פסוקי דזמרא

As we have said, mumbling in a room with a bunch of other people also mumbling just isn’t cool. The first step, then, is just to do what Sephardim do and have one person who is good at it read for everyone. If someone wants to be an oiberchochom and whisper along, then they can, but this practice need not be encouraged. However, we can do better than this by looking at the source for pesukei d’zimra in the gemara.

אמר רבי יוסי: יהא חלקי מאוכלי שלש סעודות בשבת. אמר רבי יוסי: יהא חלקי מגומרי הלל בכל יום. איני?! והאמר מר: הקורא הלל בכל יום הרי זה מחרף ומגדף! כי קאמרינן — בפסוקי דזמרא.

Leaving aside the question of the intention behind Rabi Yose’s original statement, the gemara believes that it is plausible that someone might use the term הלל to refer to פסוקי זדזמרא, therefore the two must have something in common. Contemporary experience might indicate that the point of commonality is that hallel consists of standing around muttering tehilim whereas pesukei d’zimra consists of sitting around while muttering tehilim! But this is not correct:

דרש ר”ע בשעה שעלו ישראל מן הים בקשו לומר שירה שרתה עליהן רוח הקודש ואמרו שירה כיצד אמרו שירה כגדול שמקרא את ההלל בבית הכנסת ועונין אחריו על כל ענין משה אמר אשירה לה’ וישראל אמרו אשירה לה’ משה אמר עזי וזמרת יה וישראל אמרו אשירה לה’ משה אמר ה’ איש מלחמה וגו’ וישראל אמרו אשירה לה’ ר’ אליעזר בנו של ר’ יוסי הגלילי אומר כקטן שקורא את ההלל בבית הסופר ועונין אחריו על כל דבר ודבר משה אמר אשירה לה’ וישראל אמרו אשירה לה’ משה אמר עזי וזמרת יה וישראל אמרו עזי וזמרת יה משה אמר ה’ איש מלחמה וגו’ ר’ נחמיה אומר כבני אדם שקורין שמע בבית הכנסת שנאמר אז ישיר משה וגו’ שאין ת”ל לאמר ולמה נאמר מלמד שהיה משה פותח בדבר תחלה וישראל עונין אחריו וגומרין עמו משה אמר אז ישיר וישראל אמרו אשירה לה’ כי גאה גאה משה אמר עזי וזמרת יה וישראל אמרו זה אלי ואנוהו משה אמר ה’ איש מלחמה וישראל אמרו ה’ שמו

So, there are two ways of doing hallel. One consists of repeating each pasuk after the reciter, and the other of repeating the first pasuk of each perek. Depending on how one interprets the mishnah in Succah, there may be a third method in which you only recite הללויה after every pasuk (or, as the Rambam claims, after every half pasuk). So, it would seem that pesukei d’zimra should also include a responsive element, with the congregation either repeating each pasuk or repeating a specific pasuk as a refrain. This would require a significantly shorter selection of tehilim than found in modern nushaot, but the purpose would not be to save time, nor even to say the tehilim more slowly (though, as compared to most schuls, this is certainly necessary), but because doing it in the better way inherently takes more time.

In addition, we may note that, despite the fact that the Rishonim define pesukei d’zimra as consisting of different collections of whole perakim of tehilim, the words פסוקי דזמרא most naturally refer to a selection of pesukim, and, indeed, all known traditions of pesukei d’zimra include a section with just such a selection. Arguably, this should be considered the most important part, and is a good place to start with responsive chanting. It also allows you to vary the selection of pesukim from day to day, and choose appropriate ones for special days. It is also possible to vary the selection of the whole perakim of tehilim. An easy way to start, already included in the Nusah Eretz Yisrael siddur, is to do the shir shel yom for each day, but there’s no reason to stop there.

Which brings me to a point that will become a running theme, namely that the road to better tefilah b’tzibur requires emancipating ourselves from slavish reliance on the siddur. The Talmud Bavli condemns in quite strong terms those who write down brachot (and, strangely enough, though Rambam codifies the rest of the passage, he just ignores that). The immediate concern there is that this will lead to names of Hashem being burned in the event of a fire, but Prof. Wollenborg has assembled a large body of sources that point to Hazal’s general preference for oral over literacy-based religious culture. (Unsurprisingly, since it directly contradicts Hazalic sources, kabbala is frequently quoted in support of the claim that praying from a siddur is the superior practice). Our collective decision to ignore Hazal on this point, however, has clear and predictable effects. The first is that placing a siddur in the hands of each congregant necessarily fixes the liturgy according to whatever is written or printed in the siddur, otherwise, what would be the point? The second is that giving congregants a siddur facilitates, and thus promotes, forms of prayer in which each congregant says everything. In principle, these can be cool if everyone is in time and enunciating clearly, but the inevitable result is that listening and chanting skills that are not required degrade, and the stable equilibrium under such circumstances is the black hole of a group of people all mumbling in disharmony, or, to put it another way, the collapse of תפילה בציבור into mere aggregated תפילות היחיד. The use of modern technology to produce new micro siddurim is an important step forward, but the ultimate goal should be to dispense with them. Which brings us to…

קריאת שמע

This section can be divided into two parts: the Shema itself and the accompanying b’rachot. With regard to the first, if you were paying attention you have already seen what to do:

ר’ נחמיה אומר כבני אדם שקורין שמע בבית הכנסת שנאמר אז ישיר משה וגו’ שאין ת”ל לאמר ולמה נאמר מלמד שהיה משה פותח בדבר תחלה וישראל עונין אחריו וגומרין עמו משה אמר אז ישיר וישראל אמרו אשירה לה’ כי גאה גאה משה אמר עזי וזמרת יה וישראל אמרו זה אלי ואנוהו משה אמר ה’ איש מלחמה וישראל אמרו ה’ שמו

The way of reciting Shema in schul is half-pasuk antiphony, in which the leader recites the first half of each pasuk and the congregation responds with the second half. This is naturally appropriate for a well known text that people know fluently from daily recitation. Ideally, according the Yerushalmi, each individual should already have recited the Shema with the b’rachot before sunrise, but making due allowance for human frailty, the congregation fulfils their obligation by virtually saying the entire Shema by answering the makri’s half pasuk with its conclusion. The question of how the makri is yotzei is slightly more complicated. According to the principle of שומע כעונה, endorsed by both talmudim, he can fulfil his obligation simply by listening to the congregation completing each verse. Indeed, in the Yerushalmi, a similar practice in hallel for the verses ברוך הבא is cited as proof that שומע כעונה works. However, the wording of the Tosefta here would seem to indicate that he should complete the verse along with the congregation.

This practice is given the name פורס את השמע (literally, slice in half the Shema) by Hazal and they specify that it cannot be done with fewer than 10 men. As well as being infinitely more dignified than the custom of all the individuals in the room reciting Shema separately, it also solves a familiar problem. When saying the Shema, do you go faster than the Shatz, and thus sit around like a lemon at the end waiting for him to finish up, or do you go slower and thus have to frantically catch during the succeeding bracha? Problem solved.

The second part of the question concerns how to do the b’rachot. With regard to this, Rambam says

סֵדֶר תְּפִלּוֹת הַצִּבּוּר כָּךְ הוּא. בַּשַּׁחַר כָּל הָעָם יוֹשְׁבִים וּשְׁלִיחַ צִבּוּר יוֹרֵד לִפְנֵי הַתֵּבָה וְעוֹמֵד בְּאֶמְצַע הָעָם וּמַתְחִיל וְאוֹמֵר קַדִּישׁ וְכָל הָעָם עוֹנִים אָמֵן יְהֵא שְׁמֵיהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא בְּכָל כֹּחָן. וְעוֹנִין אָמֵן בְּסוֹף קַדִּישׁ. וְאַחַר כָּךְ אוֹמֵר בָּרְכוּ אֶת יְיָ׳‎ הַמְבֹרָךְ וְהֵם עוֹנִים בָּרוּךְ יְיָ׳‎ הַמְבֹרָךְ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד. וּמַתְחִיל וּפוֹרֵס עַל שְׁמַע בְּקוֹל רָם וְהֵם עוֹנִים אָמֵן אַחַר כָּל בְּרָכָה וּבְרָכָה. וְהַיּוֹדֵעַ לְבָרֵךְ וְלִקְרוֹת עִמּוֹ קוֹרֵא עַד שֶׁמְּבָרֵךְ גָּאַל יִשְׂרָאֵל:

In accordance with both Rav Saadia Gaon and Rav Amram Gaon, Rambam writes that the Sha”tz says the b’rachot and the congregation fulfils its obligation by listening and saying amen. However, he adds that ‘one who knows how to bless’ reads along with the Sha’tz. There is no source for this statement, but it seems logical enough as long we accept what must be its premise, namely that the b’rachot are always the same. If, by contrast, we assume that the b’rachot recited can be quite different from day to day, reciting alongside would require extraordinary abilities.

This brings us back to our two claims about what is wrong with tefila b’tzibbur, namely that (a) it’s debilitating to say the same thing over and over again and (b) it’s lame to be in a room with a bunch of people all mumbling to themselves. We can now refine the thesis somewhat, because they are not two separate things, but two sides of the same coin: the fact that you are constantly saying the same thing facilitates group mumbling, and, viewed from the other side, the demand to be able to fully participate in group mumbling necessitates a fixed nusah. As we have already said, the chief culprit here is the siddur, but fixing davening means confronting the legacy of Old Spain.

The battle between the two centers of Eretz Yisrael and Bavel during the Geonic period ended in the triumph of the latter, but, largely thanks to the wise leadership of Saadya Gaon, the triumphant Babylonian Judaism was a partial synthesis, absorbing certain elements previously characteristic of Eretz Yisrael. In particular, the earlier Babylonian insistence on liturgical inflexibility was dropped. Saadya Gaon himself wrote a set of yotzrot for every Shabbat of the Bavli calendar. The fall of the Baylonian Geonate, however, and the rise of Andalus as the new center of Torah learning, led to a re-radicalisation of the Bavli tradition, a sort of hyper-Geonism in which the Geonim themselves were not considered sufficiently committed to the omni-significance of the Bavli.

The Spanish poets developed the Jewish liturgical tradition in many ways, introducing stress-metre, a more classical form of Hebrew expression, and a move towards a more readily comprehensible register than the Kalirian high-Piyyut tradition. To my mind at least, these developments were almost entirely positive. However, under the influence of a halachic approach that subjected the Jewish liturgical tradition to halachic categories explicit in the Bavli and, as a result, assimilated tefila b’tzibbur into aggregated tefilot hayahid ³, they more and more moved their creations outside the centre of the tefilah. Spanish-Jewry poetry even when purely religious in its themes became extraliturgical. It might be recited before, after, or even in between, services, but less and less as a living part of them. Schul became once and for all a place for the recitation of a fixed rite, with the only avenue for creativity left being to add a bit here, a bit there with the results we can all see. In a neat piece of historical synecdoche, the final hammer blow came in the form of Rambam’s own son, who, as Nagid in Egypt, shut down the last major Nusah Eretz Yisrael synagogue, based on his extreme and, in certain respects, quite implausible theories of what Jewish prayer was supposed to look like.

We are blessed today to live in a golden age of research into the rich tradition of piyyut, the most authentically Jewish form of creative expression in the post biblical era. We are now able, with sufficient will, to begin the task of reincorporating this storehouse of treasures into our communal prayer and, then, once we get sufficiently good at doing that, to become once again a nation with a living poetic tradition and start writing again. As good an index as any of the life of a culture is the production of poetry – the bedrock form of human expression – used in public ceremonies. The nature and purpose of that poetry reveals as well as anything the spiritual essence of that people. It is natural that the best poets of our people should devote their energies to the production of verses for use, not just inside the synagogue, but at the most important stages of the communal prayers. Likewise, it is natural that are our most talented singers should be tasked with their recitation. The almost lost art of chazzanus long laboured under the handicap of the need to dress up a liturgy petrified in stone, resulting in its characteristic overabundance of adornment and melisma, but the reintroduction of healthy liturgical variety will allow for a style that uses melody, not to obscure, but to present more clearly and penetratingly the words. This brings us neatly to…

העמידה

It is well known that after everyone has davened their own tefilah the Sha”tz stands up and recites it out loud in order that those who cannot daven on their own can fulfil their obligation by listening. Of course, everyone has already fulfilled their obligation, and everyone says ברוך הוא וברוך שמו just to emphasise that no-one is fulfilling any obligation. You’re supposed to listen for some reason, but it all feels a bit pointless, so try not to to talk too loud, because, look, it will be kiddush soon, so be a mensch. However, the Yerushalmi has something interesting to say:

רִבִּי אָחָא וְרִבִּי יוּדָה בֶּן פָּזִי יָ‍ֽתְבִין בְּחַד כְּנִישְׁתָּא אָתִי עֲבַר חַד קוֹמִי תֵיבוּתָא וְאַשְׁגָּר חַד בְּרָכָה. אֲתוּן וְשַׁייְלוּן לְרִבִּי סִימוֹן. אָמַר לוֹן רִבִּי סִימוֹן בְּשֵׁם רִבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן לֵוִי שְלִיחַ צִיבּוּר שֶׁהִשְׁגִּיר שְׁתַּיִם שָלֹשׁ בְּרָכוֹת אֵין מַחֲזִירִין אוֹתוֹ.

If the Sha”tz misses out two or three b’rachot, we don’t make him go back, but in such a case, how could anyone be yoztei their hova by listening? Obviously they can’t, and therefore obviously this can’t really be the point. So what is the point? The answer according to Torat Eretz Yisrael (defined here as the documented practice of Jews in Eretz Yisrael) is to hear a performance. This performance consists of hearing a literary creation which takes the basic form of the Shemoneh Esrei or Tefilat Shiva as springboard for the incorporation of poetry on the theme of the weekly Torah reading, or festive calendar. Everything that was said above about the b’rachot on k’riat shema applies again here. Modern research gives us the opportunity to escape the liturgical dark age, to creatively use what has been left to us by providence in the vaults of a Cairo synagogue, and, then, to become again creative ourselves.

All that remains to be mentioned here is the kedusha, but there is not much to say because this is about the one thing that we are doing OK. The reason is that the format of tefilah led by the Shatz punctuated by collective audience participation, which is, to repeat, the proper format of all Jewish prayer, just works. Of course, we can do a lot better. There is no good reason whatsoever for the intrusion of audience mumbling into the Shatz’s lines that kabbalists introduced. Similarly, the correct melodies for kedusha are those that evoke pomp and majesty, never kitsch melancholy or sentimental hippy pap. Most importantly, there is no need to limit this majesty to the same arrangements of words over and over again, since our poetic treasury is nowhere more rich than in the kedusha.

קריאת התורה

Our final piece of the puzzle is leining, the absolute nadir of modern davening, in which every Shabbat a million drashos about the chashivus of and reverence for Torah go to die in rooms full of people paying literally no attention whatsoever and barely even pretending. Everyone knows what the main problem is: leining is way too long, and so leining is too fast, but it’s still too long and no-one can be bothered. The solution here is not only obvious, it already exists, namely the Eretz Yisrael practice of completing the Torah every three and half years rather than one. It hardly needs to be explained how shortening the leining allows for it to be read at a reasonable speed without exceeding the ability of the ordinary person to concentrate. However, perhaps even more important than this is that the Triennial Cycle is the most plausible way of getting back to a situation where people as a routine lein their own aliyah.

Hazal never talk about aliyot nor a part of the service called ‘listening to the Torah’. At least as much as it is an educational experience, keriat haTorah is the supreme religious act of Judaism, the moment when a Jew approaches the holiest object that exists today and combines what is written in it with the oral tradition he has learned to recapitulate the revelation of G-d’s eternal law to mankind. By contrast, going up to the bimah, saying some b’rachos and then standing there in front of everyone while someone else does your reading for you and you try to whisper along to avoid a safek bracha levatalah is an obvious form of ritualised public emasculation. The fact that people pay good money for this is enough to make you wonder whether Daniel Boyarin is right after all.

We have nothing to lose but our cringe

Let’s hope not though. If I have to sum up my thesis, it’s that davening can and should be cool because Judaism should be cool. If you ask a random Yid what was the best thing they did today, the default answer should be davening. Of course, for all of us who have grown up in this lamest of eras, and some of us more than others, that means adjusting somewhat our trained instincts about what is cool. ⁴ We think of the recitation of poetry today as effeminate and pretentious because the recitation of poetry today is effeminate and pretentious, but once upon a time it was as cool, nay as macho, as it gets. Of course, reviving any of these practices risks, nay makes inevitable, not just the charge, but the reality of LARPing. But it’s too bad; you can’t choose when you were born. We are not, of course, Greeks, and to become who we are means something quite different for us than it does for the offspring of other peoples trying to figure out if anything is left to conserve as they grasp for ways out of liquid modernity. At a certain level of abstraction, though, the task of all peoples is the same: work out what your nation was put on earth to do, and become really good at it. Davening isn’t the only job we have, but it’s got to be up there.

1. It’s possible to approach the two statements attributed to Rabi Yohanan without the reconciling hermeneutic imposed on them. Perhaps, Rabi Hiyya and Rabi Aba, both immigrants to Eretz Yisrael from Bavel, carried with them the clear preference for praying in a synagogue that is consistently expressed in the Bavli, but we are interested here mostly in the corporate voice of the Yerushalmi itself.
2. “Christians who observe an Orthodox Jewish service will be struck by apparent lack of cohesion. During the preliminary reading of Psalms, worshipers proceed at their own pace, sometimes singing lines out loud. When the congregation stands, individuals will rise and sit down at their own pace rather than as a group.” It’s true that Christians are struck by the lack of cohesion, because anyone would be struck by it, including, as we shall see, Hazal.
3. A lot of effort has been put into deriving a doctrine of tefilah b’tzibbur from the Mishne Torah, and it is true that some ghosts in the machine are identifiable. Compared to the modern doctrine in which tefiah b’tzibbur is defined as 10 men praying their silent amidah in the same room, this can make Rambam, look like an advocate for the Reactionary concept of Tefilah B’Tzibbur, but in historical context he is correctly seen as an opponent.
4. As we noted above, not all contemporary prayer is equally uncool. Clearly, the Teimanim are the coolest, and this is no surprise because they retain in their public prayer more of the elements described here than any other edah. But we can do better. Think of a good Teimani schul as a 4, and an average one as a 2. We should shoot for 10. Also, let’s be frank, you’re not Teimani.