changing minhag

[cellio]

The t'filah (aka the amidah), the central prayer of the service, is said silently. It is customary for the leader to wait until everyone has finished before going on with the service, but the morning minyan doesn't do that. As a congregant I found this frustrating but eventually learned to live with it; as a leader I'm now a little frustrated from the other side. So this morning I raised the issue for the first time. (I don't have the authority to make the change unilaterally, but I want to get people talking about it.)

Pro: This is broad Jewish custom. (Halacha?)

Con: But not here, and not only that but their rabbi so ruled. (This isn't just a property of the morning minyan; it's true of all their services.) That makes not doing it "local halacha".

Pro: Slower people feel rushed and/or stomped on now.

Con: If we wait, the last person to finish may feel self-conscious (like he's holding the rest of us up).

Con: It may be hard for the leader (or at least this one) to tell when people are finished, because some just stay standing rather than sitting down only to get back up for the chatzi kaddish and torah service when everyone's done. (Remember that this congregation doesn't do a chazan's repetition of the t'filah, so if you sit down after the silent one it's brief. Some don't bother.)

Obviously, because their rabbi has made a ruling, this discussion isn't about making the change directly but about approaching the rabbi -- which I'll only do if this group agrees on the proposal.

Comments

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I was looking at the Mishnah Berurah recently and I think it says something like wait for the most prominent person (head of the bet din?). You might use that as a halachic baseline and not wait for everyone, but for most people and for the real daveners.

However, the more elegant solution (as I see it) is in doing tachanun after the amidah, which you don't mention. That gives fast people some meditative time, and slow people don't feel hurried.

[cellio]

Tachanun would be a good solution, yes. This group has stripped the service down to (or perhaps past) the minimum, pretty much, so I suspect they won't be receptive to that suggestion. But it's worth keeping in mind.