[Avodah] rav ovadya yosef and leil shauvot

[Shlomo Pick]

RCL was kind to call my attention to R. O. Yosef's response (which also
appeared in weekly newspaper). He certainly does mention the issue of za'ar,
and I can't argue with that nor with some of her other significant points,
and yet.
Since RCL is from UK, then she probably knows that in certain communities
the practice is like the MB. I refer to Gateshead where 3 of my daughters
studied and had the pleasure to be there on shavu'ot. As far as I know all
the shuls wait until after zeit, have a late meal. Those who stay up have a
quite early vatikin minyan. Those who don't, daven as usual. I presume that
the yeshivesh ashkenazic communities in London and Manchester for the most
part do the same.
As usual he provides many of the sources, however, I find it fascinating
that he ignored the kaf hachayim who is quite machmir lechatchilah, a book
that R. O. Yosef himself completed, veZarich Iyyun.  Likewise, he ignores
the MB an OH, books written with northern Europe in mind, and yet they wrote
what they wrote.
Now I wonder why R. Yosef would answer questions for Europe where most
countries have local rabbinates, rabbonim, posekim, dayanim, roshei
yeshivot. Could it be that the local ashkenazic custom was influencing some
of the Sephardic kehilot, and they appealed to him for redress?  Otherwise,
I find it strange that he would interfere in local communal affairs.  It
would be like an Israeli rav permitting one to daven in a shul with mixed
seating and ignoring all that has gone in the states since the fifties (I
know because I encountered one and to this day am still astonished by this.
The person to whom he gave the psak was also so astonished, so much that in
this specific case, did not abide by it).
Hence, I don't think R. O. Yosef is referring to areas in Europe where there
are established customs to wait. He would be referring to those
congregations, probably sefardic, perhaps relatively new, who were being
influence by the perhaps stronger yeshivesh customs and wanted to retain an
older one. Sort of like a yeshiva boy coming home from Lakewood to Breur's
and trying to change the world (or ponevich and where they did really change
the world).
Re: tikkun.  Most Sephardic and Chassidic Jews indeed do the tikkun.
However, must yeshiveshe personalities learn what they usually learn the
whole year or zman.  That's what we did in YU, and that's what almost all
the yeshiveshe do in bnei brak and in Jerusalem. So for most of these
communities, the tikkun is a non-starter of an argument.  Even the ba'al
habatim of all the non-chassidic shuls, whether mizrachi or chareidi, have
shiurim throughout the nite, non do the tikkun, all spend the nite to their
best ability to limud be'iyyun, in depth learning.
Since Sephardim many a time daven from plag hamincha (just go to the kotel
and you can see it in action), they are not so worried about kriyat shma
after shkiya or zeit (especially the latter).  However the olam hayeshivot
is certainly choshesh for that all year round, so on this nite of shau'ot
where there is temimut, and most olam hayeshivot say ba'omer, implying it's
d'oraita as you have aptly summarized, should we change the custom?
There's no greater popular halacha manual than the kitzur shulchan aruch,
and it was written with Europe in mind for Europeans. See 120:11 where he is
machmir to wait with arvit until after zeit.  And his zeit was probably not
the gra's but probably the full one of 45-50 minutes.
Chag sameiach
Shlomo