Is a Synagogue a Place to Pray?

I was in the Upper West Side this afternoon, just before the sun was setting, and I hadn't yet davened mincha. I was right near the Carlebach shul, and while I didn't know about the shul's hours, I thought I ought to check to see if I could daven in there. I found the doors locked, and so I rang up and heard a voice call back, "Who's there?" I didn't see why that mattered, but i told him my name, and that I just wanted to daven mincha. The voice replied, "what did you say? I can't hear you." "I just want to daven mincha by myself," I told him. The unlocking-door buzzer sound, and i was set. I came in, found the light switch myself to what must be the sanctuary, took a siddur off the shelf, and I said mincha.

I was thinking of how many times I have tried to do this and have found locked doors. I passed the church down the block from the shul where I had just prayed, and I thought of the way the church is portrayed in the movies-- if a person needs to reach out to God in times of crisis, despair, or even gratitude, there is a house of prayer that is always open and available for his or her outpouring. I think Chassidic stories tend to portray the synagogue in the same way. But today, our shuls are opened for services, and that's usually it. If a person wanted to call out to God, she might have to do it in the movie theater across the street from a locked shul, in a phone booth (not a bad choice, but they're becoming more and more uncommon) or next to a tree planted in between the pavement of the sidewalk in front of the imposing, locked building. These are places I've gone to pray at times that i haven't had a house of worship available. Of course, my prayers were the same as the ones they say in synagogue during the services, mostly-- I'm just not good with timing. But what if I wanted to call out to my creator from the innermost parts of my heart.

The services are really that conducive to this kind of thing, themselves. But a locked building really kills the opportunity to use the shul as a place to connect to God within a Jewish framework. Of course, those other places also have little angels waiting to carry your prayers up to God, but this phenomenon of the locked synagogue is a missed opportunity to actually create a sacred space for all Jews at all times. Imagine a person is having a hard day, and during his lunch break, he stops into a shul at an off time and goes to rendezvous with God there. That's a pretty cool thought, no?