[Avodah] Waiting to Daven Maariv on Shavuous

[Chana Luntz]

RSBA writes:

> The MB and SA Harav who are the leading poskim for most of the Jewish
> world,
> both say to wait.

This qualifies for my usual Ashkenazocentric exortation.   At most one could
say "the MB and SA Harav are the leading poskim for most of the *Ashkenazi*
Jewish world".  I am sure there are people here who would want the Aruch
Hashulchan in here - and others who would want the Kitzur, but regardless,
the point still stands.

It is somewhat ironic to me, that the Sephardi poskim do indeed go on about
the tircha d'zibbura involved in waiting, and how it diminishes simchas yom
tov, and they generally lived in places where the wait was not so bad,
whereas in Ashkenaz, where you can be talking about nearly 11pm at night
before you can make Kiddush, the minhag arose.

As a personal aside - I confess that Shavuos is the yom tov that always
makes me most miss Australia.  Pesach in Australia was pretty odd, being in
the autumn, channukah was arguably weird, lighting candles at 9pm, Rosh
Hashana and Yom Kippur somehow feel the same everywhere, but Shavuos was so
much nicer in Australia.  Firstly, it started at a reasonable time - I
reckon RSBA will be making Kiddush by 7pm if not earlier.  But it was not
only that, you had time to have a decent, nice yom tov meal, at a reasonable
time, when you feel like eating, and then could still trot along to shul
(usually for some speakers and plenum session) - usually from around 9pm to
11pm or midnight.  And after that the real learning started, with hourly
sessions - but because you didn't daven till after 5am, you would have at
least 4-6 of those.  By the time you got to shachris, you felt like you had
really done something.  Whereas here in England, or even in Israel, you rush
through dinner, which is far too late for one to really be able to eat
(achila gassa really springs to mind) you get maybe an hour or two of
learning, and then that's it, it is shachris.  Maybe if somebody organised a
tikkun leil that started early, broke for a meal, and then resumed, it could
capture some of the same feel (I assume you would have to put the kids to
bed before you started, but here, lets face it, most of the kids I know miss
shavuos night until they are older as most people around here put kids to be
around 7-8pm like on a normal night), but I have never heard of anybody
doing that.

> SBA

Regards

Chana