[Avodah] shlichei tzibbur, davening speed, and halacha

[Gershon Dubin]

<<Ordinarily, he davened an extremely long shemoneh-esrei (there were standing instructions not to wait for him to begin the chazarah). However, when he was shaliach tzibbur, he was always among the first people finished and the tzibbur never had to wait for him (I remember that our Rosh Yeshivah pointed this out to us to show us how important it is not to be matriach the tzibbur).>> My first experience davening regularly in a non-Yeshiva minyan was at a Young Israel in my old neighborhood where Rav Asher Zimmerman z"l was rav and happened to be in aveilus when I first started davening there. He did not in fact take as long as he usually did (the tzibur also did not, at his request, wait for him) but he took very long, (which was a great way for me to transition to this "style" of davening).  He was wont to say, and it is verifiably true, that the difference between davening slowly (IOW "like a mentch") and the speedy Gonzalez method, is 5 minutes on the clock for Shacharis.  Much less for mincha and maariv. Devarim ha'omdim berumo shel olom uvnei adam mezalzelim bahem. I remember speaking to the gabbai at the local minyan factory on 17 Tamuz the year I was in aveilus.  He came over to me and said "none of this slow stuff for maariv today, the olom is fasting and has no patience" I answered that "we said selichos, anenu, avinu malkenu, fasted, etc. etc. through the day so that at the end of the day we could daven ma'ariv in 7 minutes?" He was "bal korcho oneh amen" and (I didn't hear) nary a word of complaint about the extra few minutes. The Mishna Berura (124:13) says that we wait for the rav to finish shemoneh esrei because he's the only one who's davening properly, so if the rav is not there we should still wait for people who daven slowly (within reason) (whatever that means) (YMMV). Gershongershon.dubin at juno.com
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