[Avodah] davening on airplanes

Eli Turkel eliturkel at gmail.com
Mon Nov 28 08:24:44 PST 2011


I am confused by the whole issue of davening on airplanes. RMF, RSZA and
many other poskim state clearly that one should not stand in the aisles and
in any way inconvenience other passengers going to the bathrooms etc for
the sake of tefillah. We seem to have a situation in which all major poskim
agree one way and the "world" does the opposite in order to be more frum.
I completely agree with Chana that at the root we have the demand to
(assumely) daven more properly
ve many prohibitions bein adam le-chavero, safek pikuach nefesh, less
kavanah staying in the back etc and somehow this all gets trumped by
standing for the Amidah and having a minyan against the poskim

Eli Turkel

<<Yes, but here again we have a situation where underlying the chillul
HaShem
there is a basic averah - in this case ignoring pikuach nefesh, which
includes even safek pikuach nefesh or even reasonably remote safek pikuach
nefesh.  The captain doesn't turn on the seatbelt sign for the fun of it,
but  because there are serious risks if a person gets thrown around due to
turbulence.  There is no question, once people frame it that way, that
everybody would agree that if the choice is between making up a minyan and
safek pikuach nefesh, one does not make, and indeed breaks, the minyan.  The
problem is that people do not take safek pikuach nefesh - not to mention
care for other's property, kovod habriyos and various other of these bein
adam l'chavero mitzvos seriously enough, thereby inappropriately and wrongly
prioritising the bein adam l'makom mitzvos.  But making the wrong call when
faced with eg davening versus pikuach nefesh (or some of the other cases
where it may be less stark and harder to do) is still wrong- and doing so
publically and wilfully thus still constitutes a chillul HaShem.>>

-- 
Eli Turkel
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