“Jewish law prefers that Jews pray communally rather than privately.” Joseph Telushkin, “Minyan,” in Jewish Literacy, 719.
I’ve been thinking about this notion for a few days after I read it because I get the impression that most of the Christians I know pray individually and about their own self interests more than anything else. I know this is true of me. But Telushkin, reiterating the teachings of the rabbis in connecting Jewish prayer to the concept of minyan, where the minimum number of males required to conduct a worship service or say certain prayers is ten, says that public prayer prevents such personal expressions of self-interest. He says:
" . . . the rabbis apparently felt that public prayers are more apt to be offered for that which benefits the entire community, whereas individuals often pray for that which benefits only themselves, even if it be at the expense of someone else" (719).
In Evangelical or Pentecostal services that I've attended, at some point a person generally leads the congregation in prayer. This prayer usually is offered for the needs of people in the congregation and for things in which we all have a common interest: our communities, nation, world issues, etc. What the rabbis were saying makes sense because I've seen public prayer constrain the person praying to prayers for things of general concern, not individual concerns. By default then, public prayers tend to lean toward expressions for the public good, or the good of others. Prayers of self-interest make no sense in the public forum. We do not want someone to stand up in the community and pray about themselves. We want them to pray about all of us! This is why I like rabbis' point: communal prayer forces us to pray on behalf of the collective good, not the individual good.
Telushkin also makes a good point about the downside of praying for individuals in the public setting. Particularly, some prayers for the individual are at the expense of someone else, such as two people in a congregation who are applying for the same job. If we pray for one person to get the job, we are in effect praying for the other person to not get the job. The same thing could be said of pre-game sports prayers where two teams are competing against each other. If the teams were to pray separately, the prayer might include a prayer to win the game--as a former athlete I have witnessed this myself--whereas a prayer to win with both teams together would not represent the praying community. Public prayer must represent the interests of the gathered public.
What about the way Jesus' instructed his followers to pray in secret as opposed to those who "love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men" (Matthew 6:5)? It seems he was warning against those who only prayed in public with self-interest. Remember the two who prayed in the temple: The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself . . ." (Luke 18:10 ) while the tax collector prayed with humility "at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner'" (Luke 18:13 ). The one who prayed publicly about himself was not heard, while the one who prayed privately with humility went home justified. In the end, it appears Jesus was trying to teach his followers that solitary and public prayer is essential, countering those who just prayed to impress others.
Public prayers certainly have the potential to be misused for self-interest as do private prayers, but Christians can learn from the rabbis that prayer is not just personal, it can be communal. I noticed in recent years after buying a Book of Common Prayer, an Episcopal book of prayers and other rites of the church, that the section in the book on prayers and thanksgivings are all focused on the good of the community, the church, or the nation. Besides that, all the prayers are written in the first person plural (we, us), not singular (I, me). This is consistent with the well-known prayer in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that instructs the people of God to pray and repent collectively, just as Jesus' instructions in the Lord's Prayer is also known as the "Our Father," not the "My Father," based on the prayer itself being in the first person plural. With these things in mind, this collective focus in prayer seem to me to be a good antidote for the prayers of self-interest focused on me, myself, and I. It also seems to suggest all of the hype in recent years about the Prayer of Jabez ("Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! 1 Chronicles 4:10) is a bit overstated, even if God did answer this prayer of extreme self-interest.
So in the end, I think a healthy prayer life combines elements of both types of praying to combat our tendencies in this age toward isolation and narcissism. By praying individually, we sustain our personal spiritual lives and the interests of those we love and know in our families and among our friends. And by praying collectively, we pray about those things that concern us all. We need both.