Month: November 2021

The National Holiday Minyan Schedule

For those who get compensated for them, a national holiday is a nice gift. For Shuls they create a little blip, since they have to decide whether to go with the regular schedule, switch to a Sunday Schedule, or some other permutation.

The switch to Sunday schedule seems like a logical move, since most people are off and they like to celebrate with a little more sleep. Even in neighborhoods with many minyanim, people generally prefer praying with the home shul advantage, so accommodating them with a schedule change makes sense.

Following the lead of many Yeshivas, some Shuls prefer not to acknowledge national holidays and keep to their regular schedule.

All things considered, it’s probably slightly better halachically to go with earlier times, although in the winter, when some Shuls daven before sunrise to accommodate working people, the later times would be better.

If you’re a getting things done type of guy, you might prefer the earlier weekday times, so you can get a productivity jump on your day.

Many Shuls daven a little slower on Sundays so that might sway a preference one way or another.

If your Shul can fill all the minyanim, adding an extra later minyan might make sense.

In any case, it’s a good opportunity to perhaps get there a little before the start time, daven a little slower, and stay for the whole thing if that’s not your usual practice.

Hashem Loves Us – Our Shul Loves Us

Sometimes it’s hard to feel the love. We all experience difficult times in our lives and we have to make extra effort to remind ourselves that Hashem loves us all the time. He gives us family, friends, food, shelter — life! We need to recognize all the gifts that we can never repay.

So too, it’s often hard to see that our Shul loves us. The officers and committee members may get a little cranky at times, but they provide us a place to connect to our friends and Hashem. Trying to serving us the best they can, usually requesting nothing in return. Since it becomes a commonplace occurrence we fail to recognize the good they do for us.

One of my great Rebbeim, Rabbi Yitzchak Kirzner z”l taught that our relationship to Hashem is improved through our improved relationships with people. It’s an Avodah to see the love and caring that others send our way and that will help us see the love that Hashem showers on us.

See the love, feel love, connect through the love.

How Awesome is This Shul

“How awesome is this place! This is the house of Hashem and the gateway to heaven”. When Yaakov said this, he was talking about the Beis HaMikdash. After the destruction, our Shuls function as our Mikdash Me’ats, our small places of holiness. They are our houses of Hashem, our gateways to heaven.

Our Shuls are truly awesome places. It’s the place that we can have a face to face conversation with Hashem three times a day. It’s the place where we can publicly declare Hashem’s greatness with our Jewish brothers and sisters. It’s the place where we can witness people working selflessly to keep this holy place functioning.

So why don’t we feel it? Why don’t we walk into a Shul and feel “How awesome is this place!”?

It’s probably the same reasons that we generally don’t feel Awe of Hashem. In the “Guidebook to Reaching Awe” (a.k.a. Mesillas Yesharim), the Ramchal highlights many deterrents that keep us from reaching adequate levels of Awe.

One of the deterrents is worldly distractions. We’re dealing with a lot of things on a daily basis: our jobs, our finances, our families, our friends, our health, and what exactly are we going to have for breakfast/lunch/dinner today. It’s hard to put those things out of our minds.

A second deterrent is our self-centered perspective. The davening is fast. Or slow. It’s hot. It’s cold. It’s talkative. It’s unfriendly. I want my seat. Don’t sneeze on me. There’s no cholent. That’s our default perspective.

Perhaps when we walk into to Shul, we can start with the thought – “How awesome is this place!”. This is the gateway to heaven. Hashem, the Master of the Universe wants to hear my voice. He wants to hear my problems. He wants to have a deep relationship with little ol’ me. Maybe if we start with these thoughts, we can gently push the other concerns to the side – for a little while. It’s worth a try.

Choosing Shalom Over Emes

My Shabbos Shul gives members who come on a regular basis a set seat each week. Since I was responsible for allocating the seats when we moved into our new building, it’s still my job to resolve seating conflicts. So it wasn’t out of the ordinary that a friend directed my attention to a quiet conflict in progress last Shabbos. No words were exchanged, but it was clear from the body language that two people were claiming the same seat.

After davening, I went over to the person who was assigned the seat and let him know I was aware of the situation and would try to resolve it. He said that he didn’t want to make waves and that the other person seemed to want the seat more, so he would take a different seat nearby. I offered again to try and resolve it, but he said it was ok, and he appreciated my involvement.

During the week, I daven regularly at a different weekday minyan. A number of months ago, the main gabbai clarified to me that regular daveners of the minyan could have a regular seat. Since I met the criteria, I said a regular seat would be great, and I was assigned one.

When I walked in last Sunday, I was told by a different gabbai to take a different seat on Sundays, because the person in my seat davens there on Sundays in the spring and summer months and he would be coming for the next 6 months. On the Emes (truth) scale, it would be hard to call a Sunday only spring-summer davener, a regular. But I didn’t say anything and I took the other seat. I thought that it was interesting that I was involved in resolving a seating issue on Shabbos and here I was on the other side of the table.

Reflecting upon the two events and seeing the Shabbos Shul member choose the route of Shalom over Emes, I decided to follow suit and not say anything to the Gabbai about the issue. The take away is that we do have rights, and there are times when we’re entitled to assert our rights. But perhaps our default position should be to relinquish or rights and choose Shalom over Emes.

Originally published Oct, 2017
His memory should be a blessing.