Why bother?

Another thing I do not understand is people's need to either run out of shul before the end of davening, or worse, to take off their talis and tefillin during davening.

This was really brought home to me on a recent Shabbos morning when the gentleman next to me took his talis off during HIS musaf shemone esray, and even folded it, all before he finished his tefila! ( he didn't leave, so its not like he was in a hurry or had an emergency). I think it is just a really bad habit that people get into, this one being a little odder than usual.

Although this appears to be a somewhat extreme case, it is really just a natural progression of those who take off their talis and tefillin, first during U'va L'tzion, then ashrei, and eventually, as soon as they finish shemone esray. This seems to be endemic across the spectrum but I find it harder to understand when it happens regularly on a Sunday, or among younger people who aren't in a hurry to catch a bus. I have even seen this done by a chazzan at the omud, which totally defies logic on both halachic and kovod hatzibur grounds.

I think we need to re-assess our approach to tefila, and teach our children the importance of sticking it out to the end, teaching them the halachos, which is clearly not being done, and leading by example, so as not to have a generation that R'L eventualy doesn't even bother in the first place.

Mid day madness

Is it really me, or are people just totally clueless? I am sure that the opinionated masses will set me straight here, but I don't think I am wrong.


First some background. I went to daven Mincha today at an office type place downtown. It is a room dedicated to Mincha and shiurim during the day. There are actually two rooms, a main one, and a smaller one behind it. There is a shiur in each room before Mincha, then the large room davens Sfard and the back room davens Ashkenaz. I was with someone who davens Sfard, so I was planning to do that.


Just as Mincha was about to get started, people were trying to go to the back room, but either they saw that that shiur was running late, or the people in there, very into their shiur, were sort of blocking the door from being opened. I was near this door but wasn't paying that close attention, so I am not sure, but from the sounds of the door slamming shut, I am leaning towards the latter.


So the first Minyan starts, and just as they get to Shmone Esray, I am overcome by this insane ( in retrospect) feeling to ensure that the back room HAS a minyan, since they seemed to be rebuffing people as they came in, and no one went back there once the first minyan started. So I poked my head in, and they gleefully informed me that I was number 10. What these yahoos were planning to do if I had not ventured in, I have no idea.

Well, now I was stuck, but I always like to help out a minyan, with the hope that it will be reciprocated for me if I need one, so i stayed. now you would think that these people, being a mid-day downtown type minyan, might have someplace to go, but they still took teir sweet time starting, and then someone gets up to daven who was clearly unfamiliar with the words, as well as the procedure, such as putting your feet together for kaddish and not leaning on the shtender during davening. I figured he was a chiyuv, so what could I do.

Then Shemone Esray started. There were 9 other people there. It was the noisiest silent shemone esray I have ever heard,with mutterings all about quite loudly. Then the chazzan finished ninth, and we waited for the tenth. And waited. And waited. You , again, might think that someone who KNOWS he's the tenth migh have some derech eretz for the tzibbur and move along a bit, but that would be against everything else that had gone so far.

Then the Chazzan finally got through the Chazoras Hashatz, and after Oleinu DID NOT SAY KADDISH. Which means that this gentleman who is so unfamiliar with the davening justs likes to go up an daven. Well, if it is that important to you, PRACTICE A LITTLE, for goodness sake!

I finally finished about 5 minutes after the other minyan, and felt that I had to share this. Where is the derech eretz to a Tzibbur, that one person alone is not so important that everything revolves around them?

I wish I were wrong here

It's not always good to be right.

I have been saying for years that when a shliach Tzibur has no regard for his Tziburn they will leave. Where I daven one of the chiyuvim takes much longer than the others. He also has a decided disregard for the schedule that the minyonim are supposed to follow.

(As an aside, why is it that when someone is ahead of the schedules, people feel they can say something, but when someone consistently is behind, nothing is done? Maybe the story here is the result)

So this chiyuv is usually the shliach Tzibur at this particular minyan, that is between 2 other minyanim. Today I went to daven at this particular minyan and two things were apparent right away. One, this chiyuv was not there, and two, neither were 10 people. There were only six people there, fifteen minutes after the starting time.

I strongly believe that the reason why this minyan did not happen today is because people are either embarrassed or uncomfortable telling a guy he is going to slowly (yeshivish indoctrination perhaps?) But they nevertheless don't want to be held captive by someone who feels his tefila is so important that he can daven 15% longer than everyone else, so they simply decided not to show up.

Maybe someone should say something, because not having minyonim for called times is not good for a shul as a whole.