On a Shabbos a few years ago, I was davening out of my neighborhood. As we walked into the Shul on Friday night, my host told me that we can sit anywhere, except in the aisle seats, because the more involved members of the Shul sat in those seats.

In the shul where I daven, we have Makom Kevuahs (reserved seating for Davening) and when people requested seats when we first move in, the aisle seats where the most requested and generally we allocated them to the more involved members. In both cases, involved members where the ones who volunteered most in the running of the Shul, or were members for the longest amount of time or were very generous in supporting the Shul.

I don’t think in either Shul, any guest would be asked to move if they took someone’s seat, whether they were involved members or not, but I think it makes sense that when you’re a guest in a Shul, not to take an aisle set unless you know the person who normally sits there won’t be there. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it’s a rule that makes sense if you’re like most people and don’t want to unnecessarily upset a person to any degree by taking their seat.

What seat should you take? Well the best section in our shul is the one furthest from the door. As far as which seat, it’s generally a good idea to ask any member already in the Shul, informing them that you don’t want to take another person’s seat.

I think some people will respond to this idea that any Shul member should be accommodating to guests and not care that somebody is taking their seat. While that is true, I think there is also a case to be made that the guest should try to avoid taking a member’s seat if they can avoid it.

In summary, as a guest try to avoid sitting in someone’s seat and as a member if somebody does sit in your seat, don’t make them feel uncomfortable.

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By Cosmic X from Jerusalem

I believe that the first time that I said selichot I was at 770 Eastern Parkway on a Saturday night with “the Rebbe”. Someone gave me the selichot booklet with old yellowed pages. I could not follow what was going on. At the end the Chasidim started singing something, I think it was some of the Aramaic that we say at the end of the selichot. I understood nothing, and I couldn’t even hum along with them since I did not know the tune. I had this embarrassed kind of feeling that one gets when you are the only one in the room that does not know what is going on. But this wasn’t a normal room. This was 770, with hundreds of black-frocked Chasidim singing and dancing while poor Cosmic X stared confused. (That weird, embarrassed and confused feeling was my lot quite often during the first year of Teshuvah.)

The rest of the selichot that year were not any better. It meant waking up earlier than usual to pray in the local synagogue. These guys had been saying the selichot since they were little kids, and they knew how to finish them off with blinding speed. (I’m not sure how many of them understood what they were saying.) All this was of course was a prelude to the Shacharit Indianapolis 500, which would be over in 25-30 minutes.

Later on when I moved to Israel my Hebrew vocabulary expanded, and my understanding of the selichot improved accordingly. The more I learned Torah, the more I understood what the authors of the Piyutim were alluding to. The composers of the selichot were great rabbis, who knew how to weave their incredible knowledge of Torah, Talmud, Midrashim and the Hebrew language into amazingly creative poetry. I also purchased an excellent book a few years ago that explains all of the selichot in depth, and I’ve really come to appreciate them. They are a true delicacy!

The bottom line of this post is that you get out of the selichot what you put into them. Take the time to learn the selichot, and find a minyan that prays at a speed that you feel comfortable with. If you are a beginner, don’t get discouraged. Selichot can and should be a meaningful experience.

Originally posted here.

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Mordechai Kramer wrote a 16 page booklet which explains the basic structure and use of the siddur. It includes charts and simple explanations of how the prayer service (Shacharit, Mincha, Mariv, Shabbos and Rosh Chodesh ) is performed in shul. It is a virtual life savor for the BT. Rabbi Berel Wein has commented that it is excellent.

If you would like to receive the entire booklet as a Word Document, email us at beyondbt@gmail.com or email Mordechai directly at Mordechai at krame_nm@netvision.net.il

PREFACE

It can be happily said that much has been written about Jewish Liturgy. Commentaries concerning the depth and meaning of the Jewish Prayer Book are abundant and of good quality.

This booklet will undertake a different task. It will attempt to serve beginners as a Users’ Manual for the siddur (Jewish Prayer Book) in a brief and straightforward manner, so that anyone wishing to participate in synagogue prayer can do so.

The material herein is found in the traditional codified volumes of Jewish Law and ritual; however, these sources are not easily accessible to everyone. This inaccessibility, plus the language problem and the unfamiliarity many have with the siddur, makes Davenning a very formidable obstacle for most of the Jewish people. Overcoming this obstacle is the purpose of this work.

We will use as our model The Complete Artscroll Siddur, version Ashkenaz, since this is the most common siddur in use among the majority of English speaking Jewry. The Users’ Manual is compatible with every other siddur that follows the Ashkenaz version, but the page numbers would need adaptation.

PARTS OF THE SERVICE WHICH ARE MOST OBLIGATORY AND PARTS WHICH ARE LESS SO

In this booklet, the accent is on the most obligatory parts of the prayer service. “It is better to say little with devotion, than to say much without devotion.” If you feel that the burden is too heavy, it is better to wait until the service becomes more familiar before deciding to fill in what you have omitted.

Let’s start Davenning:
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In the moments that we aspire to take our davening seriously, we are often confronted with the fact that davening with a minyan requires compromises as to the speed of the davening.

What is perplexing is that the davening seems to speed up in the wrong places. Brachos are said at a relatively slow pace, then things pick up some speed in Pesukei D’Zimra and then between Borechu and the start of Shomeneh Esrai the speeds sometimes approach that of the Japanese Bullet trains.

It’s clearly the work of the Yetzer Hora as he wants us to go fast as we enter Shema and Shomoneh Esrai, so that we don’t have the piece of mind to even attempt to say the six words of the Shema and the first paragraph of Shomoneh Esrai with kavanna.

If you try to expand the time of your minyan you’re usually fighting a losing battle as people have to get to work and are generally on tight schedules. So let me propose instead trying to institute the 7 minute solution. Try to establish that between Borechu and the start of Shomoneh Esrai there is 7 minutes of elapsed time. That will enable you to say the words at a reasonably slow enough pace to have the piece of mind to pause for a few seconds before Shema and Shomoneh Esrai to catch some kavanna.

Your minyan is probably taking between 5-6 minutes for that stretch now so you only have to reallocate 1-2 minutes from the other parts of davening. If you want to davening Berachos and Pesukei D’Zimra slower you can get to shul earlier. And you can daven Shomoneh Esrai as slow as you want and use Shomeah K’onah to listen quietly to the Sheliach Tzibbur to fulfill your Kedusha requirements. You can also try to institute the 7 minute solution at Maariv when there is a little less time pressure.

Talk to your Rav or Gabbai and see if you can convince them that this makes sense. Let us know if you meet any success.

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By Carl Aschkenasi

Dear Beyond BT–

Recently you posted a beautiful story which sought to provide mussar on judging favorably, specifically, judging favorably those who daven too fast. The subject was an elderly man who davened for the amud too fast. However, the author reveals that this speedy shaliach tzibur was a WWII veteran who was among the soldiers who successfully stormed the beach at Normandy, and in gratitude to Hashem’s protection came to every minyan for 60 years. At first glance, this anecdote beautifully underscores the importance of considering the “other side of the story.” But its emotional impact blinds the reader from recognizing the story’s subtext, that of the declining quality of prayer in the Orthodox world, and perhaps more concerning, our tendency to excuse it. The counterpoint of this yid’s commendable commitment to a minyan against his uninspired davening apparently leads to the conclusion that 60 years of shul attendance somehow excuses pedestrian prayer.

But it does not. On a second reading, or when the reader’s initial emotion subsides, the fallacy of this conclusion becomes obvious. This story is not one in which the protagonist is observed doing something odd, questionable, or suspect which in retrospect was righteous, rather it describes a wonderfully committed Jew whose feet apparently outstrip his lips in piety. It could be that more weight in judgment ought to be given to the merit of his feet, but that is not for us to say. If we make the reasonable assumption–informed by our own failings–that his fast davening reflects a paucity of kavanah, then we find this story favorably comparing 60 years of minyan attendance to 60 years of potentially transgressing halachas of proper davening, applying to both the individual and the shaliach tzibur!
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Hello, you have reached the voice mail of Shloimie Sprintzer. I am currently davening. Please choose from one of the following options.

To leave a message, press 1.

To leave a message for me to call you back during kriyas haTorah, press 2.

To text-message me, so I can respond during Shmoneh Esrei, press 3.

To page me, so that I can ignore your call and allow the phone to ring, increasing in volume, and thereby disturb everyone else’s Shmoneh Esrei, press 4.

To page me, so that I can answer during Shmoneh Esrei and make inarticulate grunting noises, press 5.

If you have video — to page me, so that I can communicate through sign language or written notes during Shmoneh Esrei, press 6.

If you are davening yourself and wish to respond to Kaddish or Kedusha, press 7.

To choose from ring options that can be played during Hallel, press 8.

If you would like to hear a pre-recorded p’sak permitting tefillah b’tzibbur via cell phone from Rabbi Yisroel Meir Shmeril Tupenovsky (RIMSHOT), press 9.

To make a Kiddush HaShem, hang up, turn off your phone, and wait until you finish davening to worry about your calls.

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As everyone knows by now, Israel is in serious trouble right now. Three soldiers are being held hostage and many have been killed. Many civilians have been killed and injured in the constant rocket attacks. Over one million Israelis in the north are sleeping in bomb shelters.

There’s nothing like watching the disaster unfold to make me realize my own helplessness. In an instinctive reaction, despite my many years living on my own and the fact that I am now married and expecting a child of my own, I spent much of the day trying to call my mother. I also did laundry—constant, obsessive washing of anything in the house that might have once touched dirt. But the one, most important thing that I should be doing, I just can’t. I can’t seem to pray.
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By Todd Greenwald

I would like to share this D-Day story.

Growing up my family davened at an orthodox shul, although we were more traditional. Every Motzae Yom Kippur, the shul asked the same person to daven maariv. Why? Because he was fast!! Back then it was great. After I became frum it bothered me greatly. We should be davening that first maariv after Yom Kippur slowly with much concentration. One Yom Kippur I remarked to my father how it bothered me. He related the following story about this gentleman:

“It was D-Day and this gentleman was off the boat and in the water approaching the beach. People from his platoon were being killed all around him. As he was moving to shore he prayed to Hashem and said, G-d if you get me out of here alive, I will go to shul every day for the rest of my life. My father told me that the man was true to his word and attends shul everyday.”
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Well if you’re looking to catch a Minyan on the Web, you’re out of luck. But the Shulchan Aruch (90:9) does say “However, if one is faced by compelling circumstances and cannot come to the Synogogue, he should see that the time when he prays coincides the the time when the congregation prays”. I wonder if there would be any halachic benefit to having a Shul webcam so you can daven at the exact same pace as the minyan and on Mondays and Thursday you can view and hear the reading of the Torah?

When you need to catch a minyan and you’re away from your normal Makon Kavuah, there’s a new site that mashes up Google Maps with your local minyan schedule called Minyan Maps. It’s pretty cool and useful and a friend of mine in Kew Gardens Hills heads the project, so give it a look.
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Growing up in a Reform Jewish congregation, I grew up with religious services conducted overwhelmingly in English, with great musical accompaniment. They lasted about an hour, included an organ and cantor with a wonderful voice, and some responsive readings, again mainly in English. On High Holidays, our synagogue employed a professional choir, featured a violin solo and also highlighted several other impressive performances. Going to services was like going to a concert, and only done on occasions.
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Finding oneself completely baffled by davening is an experience many on us probably share. I personally had no familiarity with the siddur whatsoever when I first started, so I very quickly became a noodgy davener, always looking over my neighbor’s shoulder to find the page, and that was in a shul where it was frequently announced. Baruch Hashem, everyone was very considerate about it, and Rebbetzin Hadasa Carlebach gets an extra yasher koach for giving me my first tutorial in the siddur, later followed up by NJOP’s Hebrew Crash Courses I and II. Even after I gained familiarity and began stumbling through the Hebrew, I still always found myself falling behind everyone else. “Oh, well,” I thought. “Hashem will have to accept my inadequate prayers.”
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As a BT I find davening hard, I grew up in a very spiritual house where my mother always said G-d is with you always and you can talk to him in anyway you choose the same way you’d speak to one of your sisters or friends and that is exactly the kind of relationship I had (have?) with G-d. At times we’d be the best of friends speaking 5 times a day and at others there would be some unspoken distance between us and weeks might pass without so much as a word (on my end of course).
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Davening is the place where the BT can feel vindicated. Park for a moment the speed factor: that is keeping up or better yet catching up with the Minyan. In the private sense, I think most BT’s tend to take the Avodah- the job of it seriously and are shocked and outraged when in the place of prayer they occasionally find others involved in all kinds of distracting behavior including talking.

We BT’s are usually idealistic. We come to the table primarily interested in connecting with HASHEM. The Siddur is not seen as a school-book and Prayer was never experienced as an activity that was ever thrust upon us as a requirement. It is in fact one of the most safe and rewarding places for a BT. Why might that be generally so?
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In the beginning, davening was all about singing and dancing and connecting to G-d. They were amazing times…..We would go to the old ivy covered Hillel House at G.W.U. (George Washington University in D.C) on Friday night, first daven the “service” and then make a communal Shabbat dinner (or maybe it was the other way around back then). There must have been 15 or 20 of us, blue jeans and long hair, loving the world, and in love with being Jewish, eyes shining and hearts wide open, and we danced and sang underneath the huge banner across one wall of the room that read, “Transcend!” We felt so in touch with G-d and the universe, so connected and united with the Jewish people all over the world, and all through history, that the words of the Shma burned deep into our souls, and I knew that I had found my place.
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For the past several years I have been davening Shabbos mornings in one of the local yeshivos. It is comfortable, quiet and my chavrusa sits across from me. Immediately after davening, we learn and I don’t have to involve myself with the inevitable politics that occurs in some shuls. My family and I are also members of a well-known and prestigious shul. The Rav is an extraordinarily respected talmid chachom and posek. The people are chashuv and menschlich. It’s also quiet and there are no disparaging conversations. However, the needs of the yeshiva are few while the needs of the shul are many. After nearly two years of the Rav saying to me with a big smile, “Come around a once in a while, we miss you,” combined with my boys’ (ten and seven) desire to attend Shabbos groups and my wife’s thirst to develop and bond with others, I relented. Considering that I am not easily persuaded about most things, my wife was shocked at how efficiently and effortlessly I began davening at our shul. Of course when the Rav finally looked at me straight in my eyes and ominously stated, “You’re making a very big mistake, ” I had little choice.
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