[Avodah] Waiting to Daven Maariv on Shavuous

[Chana Luntz]

I wrote:

> > 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

And RYG queried:
 
> Why does eating late imply achila gasa?  On the contrary, one would
> generally be hungrier than if he'd eaten earlier.  Do you mean that
> because of the lateness of the meal people are eating before Yom Tov?

I once had somebody tell me this was a male and female thing - this was
after I told him that I was stuck in meetings at work until nearly midnight,
and hence unable to have dinner, and then I was just too tired to eat, so
instead I went to bed. And he said to me, only a woman would have done that,
a man would have prioritised eating over sleeping.  I don't know if this is
true or not, not having done anything approaching a scientific study, but
certainly I, and others I know, will find that if it gets too late to eat,
we pretty much can't.  Eating before Yom Tov (eg chocolate) actually helps,
ie keeps the blood sugar level up so one can eat later, but if one doesn't
it is like the system decides there is no food forthcoming, so it might as
well shut down for the night, and after that eating even a kazayis of bread
becomes really very difficult.  Seder night runs into the same problems -
but with the matza, you just sit there and concentrate on eating the matza
for the sake of the mitzva, and everybody is else is quiet and focussed on
the same thing, so it is really a very different kind of eating, and once
you have had all the bits you have to have, it really doesn't matter if you
can't manage anything more than a bit of soup. And I figure that at any time
at which one has to also eat a substantial chunk of meat, the timing will be
a lot better (pesach in Jerusalem means starting seder at a far more
reasonable time than here in England).
 
It is clear that mileage varies on this one though - my husband also just
gets hungrier and eats more later, but this was in my personal note section,
which is about why I personally find Shavuos in Australia so much nicer. So
perhaps I should qualify the "one" as being only certain "ones".

> Yitzhak

Regards

Chana