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“For example. Prayer. Is something very personal but we have made it into a ritual. I mean prayer is the thing you use when you need help. It’s not just some things you mumbled daily. Someone else’s words, someone else’s meaning. G-D Listens to everything you say and also, words have power.”
A few thoughts about this.
1. The prayers our sages set forth in the siddur are works of absolute spiritual genius. I add my own personal supplications to my tefillos, and my words are awkward and clumsy in comparison.
2. When davening shacharis, mincha, and maariv, I am not there just as me myself. I am there as a part of klal Yisroel, and klal Yisroel has a specific way of doing things. So showing up and sticking with the program is part of my responsibilities to my people. When I fail to do so, klal Yisroel is diminished, chas veshalom. What you call conformist I call responsibility.
3. Hashem made human beings just about the most adaptable creatures on Earth. This is so we could spread out and fill the entire world. The first 40 degree morning in October feels so chilly, but a 40 degree morning in March feels warm. The miller doesn’t wake up to the grinding millstones, because he ceases to even notice the noise after a while. When walking into the home on Friday night, the wonderful smells of the Shabbos food greet us, but after a few minutes inside, we cannot even detect the smells anymore. This adaptability is a strength, but also a perilous weakness. Because when we get used to things, we stop thinking about them. We go into autopilot. We forget to be grateful. Our tefillos become rote, and we don’t focus on the meaning. Part of our work as Jews is to counter this tendency. And we can’t counter it if we just give up and leave, saying it’s not for us.