[Avodah] tachanun - avel, chattan & brit

[Daniel Israel]

On Wed, 02 May 2007 10:52:38 +0000 Eli Turkel <eliturkel at gmail.com> 
wrote:
>The question is
>1. why does shiva not affect Tachanun of the tzibbur (not in his 
>house)
>2. A chatan stops Tachanun but only in his minyan
>3. A Brit stops tachanun in all minyanim in the same shul

After reading the other postings on this thread, it seems to me as 
follows.  The hava amina is chasan case, so we need to explain the 
other two.  The din regarding bris, IIRC, applies when the bris is 
actually happening in the shul, so that makes sense: the din is on 
the location of the bris, not on the ba'al bris.  (In which case 
for a ba'al bris when the bris will not be in the shul, it should 
be like a chasan, which I vaguely remember to be the case, but I 
don't have a SA at the office.)  As far as the avel, I think it 
makes sense (as someone else suggests) that the din is on the 
bayis.  Aside from the point mentioned, that the neshmah of the 
niftar is associated with the bayis (I think this is specifically 
if the beis avel is the niftar's house, but that is the l'chatchila 
choice), an avel is not generally supposed to go out.  In fact, 
davening at the shul at all is b'deivad.  Of course, if the avel 
does go out, he still has din of an avel.  But still the shiva is 
strongly associated with the bayis.  I might even suggest that this 
is precisely why tachnun is said in the shul: to make clear that 
the avel really ought to make a minyan in the bayis, and coming to 
shul doesn't just turn that into an equivalent location.

B'derech drush: Ivdu es HaShem b'simcha.  Perhaps we see that when 
we can inject simcha into our avodah we do, whereas if we can avoid 
spreading tzurus, we avoid it.  Although it is important to note 
that this is regarding spreading from the gavra outward.  When it 
comes to the other direction we are chayiv in both nichum aveilim 
and hachnasas kallah.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu