[Avodah] [CC] Gripes and Grumbles

[Micha Berger]

Dear Rabbi Shafran,

(Still including Avodah...)

I have a practical idea I want to suggest in respons to the next
CC post, "Gripes and Grumbles"
<https://cross-currents.com/2019/03/19/gripes-and-grumbles>

You write:
   I also have a bimah-full of gripes revolving around shul.

   Talking during davening is wrong. Not just disturbing to others and not
   just impolite. Wrong. Ditto for literally throwing tzedakah literature in
   front of people trying to daven. Double-ditto for those who don't bother
   to turn off their phones before entering a mikdash me'at, treating it more
   like a shuk me'at.
...
   Not only would davening be stopped at the slightest hint of a
   conversation, but I would disallow chazzanus at the amud. Spirited,
   heartfelt singing would be fine, even invited. But "performances" would be
   canceled mid-concert. The tefillos, sir, just the tefillos.
...
   What is more, I would lock the doors once davening began.

   Yes, lock them, so that no one could enter.

There is a real problem when people come late, rush out, some have to
break in the middle for a qiddush to make it through a Shabbos, or check
Facebook or Whatsapp on a weekday.

But I don't think your tongue-half-in-cheek suggerstions will help.
The people who would find the resulting minyan painfully boring will
find fewer occasions to come.

If I were the rav of a shul, rather than stop minyan until the noisy
people stop talking, I would invest my energy teaching what davening
is.

Once I learned it myself. I am too often among the board... Or as one
of my rabbeim would say, "Micha, it's called 'chazaras hasha"tz', not
'chazaras hasha"s!'" Yes, I know lakol zeman va'eis. But...

I would suggest a three pronged approach, feel free to suggest more
prongs (and thus my CC-ing the larger chevrah on Avodah for their ideas):

1- Shiurim in peirush hamilim. The siddur is literally a palimpsest
of meanings, there is something there to connect to and says what
you want to say regardless of mood and how life is going.

2- I think those of us who can't feel like davening  is really talking
to Avinu shebashayim need practice doing Breslov-style hibodedus. Yes,
it feels weird in the beginning, but once I got used to talking to Hashem
in my own words, it was an emotion I can sometimes tap into when
davening.

3- Two words: tefillah behispa'alus. (Why not fuse Rav Nachman and
Rav Yisrael?) Actually, I have much more than two words to say about
this, but I just wrote about this at some length, and it's not really
for an email.  <https://judaism.stackexchange.com/a/100826/1570>

But the only way to get out of this hole is to get away from scolding
mispallelim or to impose decorum as a rule, and to give the tzibbur
self-motivation.

We need to teach how to daven, not complain that people boringly go
through the minimal motions.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
micha at aishdas.org        how can he appreciate the worth of another?
http://www.aishdas.org             - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
Fax: (270) 514-1507                  author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef