Minyan Musings

I'm the first to admit that I've never been a "minyan person". Through most of my adult life, until February 2004 to be precise, I almost always tended to daven [pray] at home on weekdays, going to shul only on Shabbos, Yom Tov, and other special occasions. Not that I would ever dream of skipping davening altogether - I prayed the three required services daily without fail, sometimes in the most inconvenient of places (one of the most embarrassing was in a stairwell in the Bell Canada building in Ottawa, wearing tallis and tefillin while total strangers walked by and gave me odd looks!). In this I was following in my father's footsteps; he also generally avoided shul except on Shabbos morning, preferring to daven in solitude. I often told myself, not wholly falsely, that my kavana [intent] was stronger when I davened alone, that the distractions of the crowd would make me lose more than I would gain from joining a minyan.

Then, in February 2004, my father Z'L passed away (more on his life, accomplishments, and passing in a future post, G-d willing). Suddenly, I was saddled with the obligation of saying kaddish, the mourner's prayer, with a minyan every day, every prayer service, for eleven months. Going to shul every morning and evening became a daily grind, and at first felt almost unbearable. I vividly remember saying to myself, not long after the initial, 30-day shloshim period of more intense mourning ended, with ten more months of "forced" daily minyan attendance stretching bleakly before me... "There's no way I'm going to make it!" I recall a tangible feeling of relief on the day that the 5-1/2 month milestone was passed - "I'm halfway there!" This attitude lasted in full force for at least eight or nine of the eleven required months.

Strangely though, somewhere in those last couple of months, something changed for me. Maybe it simply took that long for me to adjust to something new, or maybe some part of me started to feel that daily minyan attendance had become a personal way for me to honor my Dad's memory, by taking on a growth area that he never chose to. Perhaps I even started to enjoy the "daily grind" on some level. Whatever the reason, the end of my 11-month kaddish obligation came and went, and I continued to go to daily minyan, especially in the mornings, as regularly as during those months when I "had" to.

Now, of course, I am saying kaddish again, in a much more tragic and heartbreaking situation. And I wonder if my unexpected psychological and emotional adjustment to daily minyan attendance just a few months earlier, was part of some unfathomable Divine plan, to allow me to avoid one more difficult alteration that would have been added to the numerous, excruciating daily changes that our life has gone through after losing Aaron. Who can ever know? But today, it does make me stop and think - and blog.

• I have some more thoughts to add, on why us Jewish menfolk in particular have the requirement for a minyan in the first place. But that's for another day.