Note 4 — Chapter XII

Public, as compared with private worship, has the undoubted advantage of being in itself a public homage to the omnipotence of God, and a solemn testimony of the dependence of man on Him. True, solitary worship is often more likely to be attended with the requisite mental abstraction from all worldly objects, and intellectual elevation of the soul towards its Divine Source—a condition of mind indispensable to establish a true spiritual communion in Prayer, and without which all our orisons and ritual ceremonies would be but mechanical and meaningless performances, a body without soul. It is this condition of the mind that, in Talmudical style, is called כונח, as is well known, and that later ascetic writers termed החבודדות, from the circumstance that it is superinduced by solitary meditation. But whenever this condition is attained in a public service, then indeed is that service "divine," and humanity is exalted in its approach to the Throne of Mercy.—the translator.