For men, davening is a social event, meaning you have to do it with other people. Although you can pick your minyan, you can’t pick all the people who will be in it, so there will be times where there’s the potential to get annoyed. We’ve talked about some of the major annoyances like talking, cell phones, and seating conflicts. And there’s the minor annoyances like the guy davening a little to loud during Shemoneh Esrai, or randomly raising his voice during the davening.
I think the best option to deal with potential annoyances is to get so involved in your own davening that you don’t really see or hear the annoyances. This is a high level and I’ve seen a few people who seem to be at that level. For the rest of us it’s not an all or nothing deal. To the degree that we get more involved with our own davening, it is to that degree that the annoyances won’t bother us.
An option that I don’t think is correct is dealing with the source of annoyance. You could in theory tell a loud davener to lower the level a little bit. My Rav has said that this is an absolute no-no because you will make the person self-conscious about his davening, which can cause real long term damage to his ability to concentrate. In regard to other annoyances, chances are your potential cure will be worse then the problem, so it’s not a good choice.
So that leaves us in the situation where sometimes we will be annoyed by others. This presents a tremendous opportunity for us to working on liking our fellow Jew more, even in the midst of being annoyed. We can draw on our strengths of seeing the good, giving the benefit of the doubt, and overlooking our assumed right to not be annoyed. Getting over the annoyance using these positive means unifies the tzibur, making all of our prayers more effective.
I’m ready now. Go ahead and annoy me, so I can overlook it and be better.