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I have privately felt that the “schtibel” (study hall) served the Jewish male in the same way the corner bar served the Irish male — i.e., as an escape from the family, an opportunity to bond with other men, exchange gossip, do business and discuss politics.
In another world in the 1950s, my grandfather gathered regularly with nine or so of his friends in the back of a Hebrew bookstore on the north side of Chicago. The group “swapped lies” (my grandmother's phrase), and sometimes prayed.
The idea for this essay was sparked by a number of recent clinical observations and by reports in the literature which cited the special meaning that participating in the daily Jewish communal prayers (minyan) had assumed for some people. This was particularly true for individuals who were in mourning and who thus required such a minyan twice daily, to recite the traditional prayer for the dead (kaddish).1
My interest here resides primarily in the nonliturgical, group psychological aspect of this institution. The latter aspect appears to entail an unexpected, benign “side-effect” of what the observant Jews conceive as a purely religious occurrence.
Take, for example, the experience of a Jewish professional man who, though not a member of a congregation, felt compelled to say the kaddish during the year of mourning for his father. Deeply moved by the uniquely warm hospitality extended to him by this prayer group of strangers, he soon developed a strong sense of solidarity