Q&A: Prayer with a Minyan
Prayer with a Minyan
Question
Hello Rabbi,
From the Rabbi’s answers on the subject, I understand that there is no obligation to pray with a minyan, only a kind of added virtue. So I’m asking just to make sure: does that mean there’s no need to make an effort specifically to get up for a minyan or to travel specially to reach a place with a minyan (say, if I choose to forgo that added virtue), and I’m still doing God’s will, right?
Answer
It’s impossible to answer that definitively. There is no halakhic obligation to make the effort, but there is value in making it. I do not know what the Holy One, blessed be He, will do with someone who did not make enough effort. (As with tzitzit at a time of wrath.) Moral conduct, too, is not a halakhic obligation, and still I assume that the Holy One, blessed be He, expects us to do it.
It is a commandment instituted by the Sages to pray with a minyan, and a person is obligated to exert himself and go to a minyan even if it is as far from his home as the distance of walking one mil (close to a kilometer), which is about eighteen minutes (Mishnah Berurah 90:52). And if he is on the road, if within seventy-two minutes of walking (the distance of four mil) he is expected to reach a place where there is a minyan, even if he had planned to stop and rest, he must continue on his way in order to pray with a minyan. But if the place of the minyan is not on his route, then he must deviate from his route for up to eighteen minutes’ walking in order to pray with a minyan (Shulchan Arukh 90:16).
Someone who normally travels by car—some say he must drive to a minyan up to a driving distance of eighteen minutes, and likewise if he is traveling and knows that within seventy-two minutes he will reach a place where there is a minyan, he must continue driving until the minyan. And some say that even someone who normally travels by car is not obligated to go farther than the distance of one mil. It is good to be stringent, and one who wishes to be lenient has authorities on whom to rely (see note).
Someone who urgently needs to attend to safeguarding his business or property, and if he does not do so he will incur a financial loss, may pray alone in order to prevent the loss. But merchants and craftsmen must stop their work in order to pray with a minyan, even though during the time they go to pray with a minyan they will not be able to continue working and earning. Only in a special case, where going to a minyan would cause him a significant loss or the loss of an especially large profit, may he pray alone (Mishnah Berurah 90:29).
Someone who needs to travel for urgent errands or for medical treatment, and if he prays with a minyan he will not manage to arrive at his destination on time—since this causes him a loss—may pray alone.