A Diatribe Against the Sad State of Tefilla

Thank you Jewish Press for sharing with us what could be perhaps the greatest modern diatribe against the current state of communal tefilla that I have seen. I really should thank my goggle alerts for picking up Communicated: Tefilla by Moshe Yosef Werzberger (in the Jewish Press's defense, it is paid promotional content).

The caption to this picture stated: "The Tosfos Yomtov was convinced that the death of 300,000 –600,000 Jews during the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 were because of improper Tefila."

If you want to get riled up either about the present neglect of davening or an abusive generalization of God's guidance of our world, read the whole entire article. To tease you, here are some excerpts:

• The Mishnah Berura in multiple places describes shuls being destroyed or converted into avoda zara because of the public desecration of prayer in shul. (Shuls are not destroyed in a vacuum. Jews suffer greatly when this happens. The yahrtziet of Kristallnacht, which was within 48hrs of Sandy’s New Jersey landfall, was on November 9-10, 1938.
  
• The gas chambers were created by Hashem to create a perfect public prayer service, in order to facilitate teshuva for the avaira of Chilul Tefila Bifarhesia. The gas chamber was in reality a shul with all the components of Tefila kihalacha.
  
• In order to facilitate a Jewish victory Hashem put in the minds of the Arabs to attack The Jews on Yom Kippur. On that day nearly all Jews in the world are fasting even if they are otherwise not yet observant.
  
• We have introduced electronic devices into Hashem’s temples. Their mere presence, as well as their unrestricted use in all modalities, whether silent or audible, whether talking, listening, sending, receiving or surfing, violates our “intimacy “with Hashem.
  
• Hashem sent the Monsey butcher as a mida kineged mida. We distanced Hashem from us by ruining tefiloh with our public disregard for the halachikly proper tefiloh. He distanced Himself from us by having us ingest prayer (heart) altering fowl which interferes with our ability to get close to Hashem.
  
• We are in a state of denial. We keep pointing to the stats. 90,000 at “The” siyum, 2 million art scroll shasim sold, more people learning than ever before. Incredibly we are saying that the reason for the spiritual paper and brick carnage is to elicit great acts of chesed on behalf of Klal Yisroel Jew to Jew and this will make Hashem happy and bring Moshiach! We are stuck looking at the damage of the current devastation as a final act not as part of a continuum of reflective action on the part of Hashem.
  
• By calling it a “smart phone” the yetzer hara tapped into our ego. Who doesn't want to be smart? And look at all the mitzvos I can do with my smart phone. We seduced ourselves to all the benefits of instant contact with anyone in the world at any time. We delude ourselves into thinking that we are in control of our situation and those around us. The smart phone is all the Yetzer Hara wanted it to be.