Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel spoke and wrote eloquently about the communal nature of Jewish prayer. He wrote:
"We never pray as individuals, set apart from the rest of the world. The liturgy is an order which we can enter only as a part of the Community of Israel. Every act of worship is an act of participating in an eternal service, in the service of all souls of all ages. Every act of adoration is done in union with all of history, and with all beings above and below:
And yet--this we must never forget-- prayer is primarily an event in the individual soul, an act of emanation, not only an act of particiation. Even the worth of public worship depends upon the depth of private worship, of the private worship of those who worship together. We are taught that the fate of all mankind depends upon the conduct of one single individual, namely you. This undoubltedly applies to what goes on in the houses of worship." (From Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man's Quest for God, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954.)