[Avodah] Standing For Qri'at Shma`

[Zev Sero]

Jay F Shachter wrote:

> the reason originally given for why one should not
> stand immediately prior to reading the Shma` [...]  This could lead
> to everyone's standing for the Shma`,
> as a xumra if nothing else, and our Sages did not want the community,
> whom they loved, to be subjected to burdensome xumrot.  The primary
> concern was not the kavvana of the individual worshiper, it was the
> comfort of the community.  That this notion fails to appear in the
> above-cited quote may be, as I said, of sociological interest.

That's because it isn't true.  I wonder where you heard it.  The reason
it's assur to stand is that it casts doubt on Chazal's interpretation
of the pasuk.  Beis Hillel said that the word "uv'kumecha" refers to the
time of day, not to ones stance, and therefore there is no reason at all
why one would want to stand up; it's not a chumrah, because sitting
wasn't allowed as a kulah but as the pshat in the pasuk.  By standing up
anyway, even as a chumrah, one indicates that perhaps BH weren't right,
and perhaps the pasuk does require standing; and such defiance of the
halacha is assur.  It has absolutely nothing to do with anybody's comfort.

See SA OC 63:2


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas