Whereas boys daven in the minyan in yeshiva and then eat breakfast, girls are assumed to have breakfasted at home before they daven together as a group. These schools that are so machmir on tznius, etc., take a great leniency in telling the girls just to say brachos (which I don’t quite get as they could then rely on just a bakasha) before eating breakfast. This is set as lechatchila, and my daughters’ teacher told me she follows this practice still, though she, obviously, is not delaying davening because she is going to be part of a group. Thus the girls learn to laze about before pulling themselves together to daven, and will, inevitably not make sof zman — not because they are busy with young children, but because they just get a sense that it doesn’t matter when they daven. And I know women who find time to go out for breakfast even and have regular household help for even a small family who consider themselves exempt from the obligation to daven.
BTW, you can see my post on women’s obligation at http://kallahmagazine.blogspot.com/2009/01/prayer-is-not-just-matter-of-heart-but.html

Raggedy, this reminds me of being in Brovendar’s and when they brought in this “Porta-minyan” of ten yeshiva boys for certain times of the year (selichot and Purim maybe?). Ten boys in the front and 100 girls in the back of a mechitza!!! It was insane.

What you were getting at about girls schools is also how I felt. Why dismiss something that can have such a positive effect on a girl’s spiritual self-image because you view it as “pas nisht”? (inappropriate)

Abby, I was a chazanit once for a women’s tefillah group and it was an amazing experience for me. There was no kaddish or kedusha. Just women davening in unison with a shaliach tzibur. It was one of my best teffilah experiences ever.

TOA- Yes, the irrelevance of shul is what I was not-so-subtly hinting at in my post. That’s why I couldn’t figure out why the original query author thought it was so essential for girls to know how to daven in a minyan.

I do think davening as a whole tzibbur is important in an ideal world, but I think the way the average Orthodox woman’s life works out, it doesn’t really turn out to be so.

Abbi, I particularly like how you posit that girls in all-girls’ schools grow up with a de facto female tefilah gathering. I can say for my part, having gone to a coed elementary school and an all-girls high school, the latter was far more conducive to a feeling of significance in the process of tefilah. In elementary school, once we were separated by gender after 6th grade, we davened “with the boys” in the school’s shul for Rosh Chodesh and other significant times. It felt stilted and awkward – suddenly our voices were muted and we were innocent bystanders at best, a subtle nuisance to be ignored at the worst. No role whatsoever, and this was an MO school.

In high school, we were all girls, so there was no hierarchy on the tefilah front. That is where my identity took some shape in tefilah – though this is also due to being older and maturing.

My daughter is 5 and is in an all-girls school that I’d say was the best choice for us now but is not in line with our hashkafot on all fronts. She delights in being the “chazanis” (and I cringe at her pronunciation, but them’s the breaks sometimes) and is a very happy, full participant.

I think that the best part of a women’s tefillah group is that it is a formal gathering, regardless of what exactly you are doing. You feel like you presense adds something specific, and lets be honest, within the context of orthodoxy, a woman’s presense at davening does not matter.

If your school has morning tefillah and your grade gathers together and the teachers as well, and it is an important time period, than you will see it as important, something to be focosed on, not rushed through

Abby

For me, personally, yes it is a lack of drive to get to shul. I like davening and it is more often inspiring than pro forma, but after spending all those years at home with small children, getting the table set and everything, davening at shul seems somehow irrelevant. And we belong to such a good shul. Nowadays, whenever I go, I find myself annoyed at the slow pace on certain sections and the bullet-train pace of psukei dezimra, which is one of my favorite parts of davening b’yechidut. After years of not finding the mechitza an obstacle before I had kids, I now find it very distracting not to be able to see what’s going on. We have a thin curtain, which makes me feel like I’m developing cataracts. In addition to which, I have a slight hearing loss, which makes it difficult to understand divrei Torah in Hebrew (my Hebrew is quite good) without seeing the mouth and face of the speaker, so either I feel frustrated or my attention wanders.

As to the next generation, I have one grown daughter who loves davening at shul and two teenagers who don’t like to go.

When I wrote that, I think I was more reacting to the out of hand dismissal of girls’ tefilla groups by the original author of the query. He seemed to assume that these were automatically inappropriate for Orthodox girls because that’s not how Orthodox adult women should or do pray.

I say, why shut off what could be a valuable educational tool for girls having difficulty with prayer?

Eleanor: I think the issue with adult women is not really a lack of drive to get to shul, it’s more the logistics and constraints of raising young children. I would love to get to shul at 8:30 shabbat morning and daven the whole time. Unfortunately, I just can’t with three small kids.

While I don’t have daughters, I do feel that I am missing some sort of real connection with davening and spirituality, primarily because I came to this late and never had any formal instruction in tefillah. whatever I do, I’ve picked up over the years.

As an adult within the orthodox community, I would like to see the girls of our community educated so that they feel a strong desire to daven, regardless of what everyone else is doing. This is so when they do have young children, they find time to make it a priority (which if you don’t have the connection, you aren’t going to do)I’m not saying they have to do 5 hours of tefillah a day, but to find 5 minutes to sit down and make brachot is possible. and seriously, if the people who are at home with the kids don’t focus on tefillah, how will the next generation of kids know that it is important.

I love the idea of formalizing whatever tefillah instruction is going on in school for both genders. I love the idea of it being an important, integral part of the day so that once these kids are out of our homes and on their own, they do make it a priority.

when my boys are older, I want them to find time to make minyan in the morning, but once they are out of my house, that is going to be something they have to want to do on their own. if I have a daughter, I want her to find the time in the morning to daven (with a minyan if she wants, but on her own if necessary) becuause that part of what makes your day.

I don’t know that I have any solutions, but I think formalizing tefillah as a class, with clear insturction, including history and such might go a long way towards making it happen

Abby