Question:
The minyan I can participate in at this time of covid19 is me in my backyard, with a minyan about 3 houses distance away that I can see parts of the members. I find the general environment makes it difficult for me to focus on davening for a few reasons, the weather can be an issue (rain or cold). There are more distractions as well such as things I see needing to be done in my backyard with regard to general property maintenance as well as personal things I’d want to do, or things that need to be done for business purposes as well. Therefore I find it in ways more difficult to daven with kavanah in this situation than if I was davening byechidus in my home.
Is it preferable to daven with this kind of minyan?
Answer:
If you find it hard to concentrate while davening with the tzibbur, and they have a minyan without you, daven together with the tzibbur, but inside the house. This way you will be able to answer amen, kaddish, daven together with the tzibbur etc, and it will not affect your concentration. Since you are inside, the cold and things in the yard will not effect your concentration. As a side point, there are certain things that you can do to help your concentration such as making sure to read from the siddur, and try not to look out. Most of us find it more difficult to daven with the makeshift minyanim then when we were zoche to daven in shul in an organized manner. H-shem has taken our shuls away from us, and maybe it is a message that we have to work on our davening to make it better. It is true that at this point concentrating s hard, but this is the part of the nisayon that shomayim has given us, therefore we will work a little harder, and IY”H we will have siyata dishmaya, and H-shem will let us go back to our beloved shuls, and take away this and all of the other gezeiros.
Best wishes
