Hillel is quite firm on the point. At Avot 2:4 the first of his five teachings is
אַל תִּפְרוֹשׁ
מִן הַצִּבּוּר
Do not separate from the community.
In many (probably most) versions
of Pirkei Avot these words are repeated verbatim by Rabbi Tzadok at Avot 4:7 as
the first of his three teachings.
As happens so often in
Avot, these few terse words are susceptible of an apparently unlimited range of
meanings and practical applications. This is because they deal with a topic
that is of universal relevance—the relationship of the individual to the group
in philosophical, moral, religious, economic, psychological and sociological
terms.
Rabbi Yaakov Hillel (Eternal Ethics from Sinai, vol.2)
suggests a novel view of Hillel’s teaching, based on the Arizal. For him, not
separating from the community is an intellectual and spiritual response to the
challenge of prayer. He writes:
The Arizal teaches that “before
one begins his prayers in the synagogue … he should accept upon himself the
commandment of ‘Love your fellow man as
yourself’. And he should have in mind to love each and every Jewish person as
he loves himself because, through this, his prayers will ascend, linked to the
prayers of all Israel”.
This does not address the issue of separation from the tzibbur,
but redefines it in terms of making a positive effort to identify with the
prayers of other Jews. But what if we know our fellows and feel intuitively
that we are not straining to pray for the same outcomes? Is it permitted or
even possible to detach our prayer from theirs?
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