[Avodah] starting the seder

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Eli Turkel asked:

> Is there any problem with starting davening early seder night and
> so finishing maariv with Tzeit (or actually a little earlier) by
> time one gets home it is tziet - say kriat shema and immediately
> start kiddush

No problem that I can think of. I wish more shuls would actually do this.

In fact, I'll go a little further, by asking about the range of opinions regarding when Tzeis Hakochavim occurs. For example, many shuls begin Maariv on a regular weeknight much earlier than they would on Motzaei Shabbos. Yet these shuls generally don't remind the people to repeat Shema later on, unless Maariv was prior to shkia (such as when starting Shabbos early in the summer).

Similarly, I have seen many shuls where they count Sefiras Haomer, with a bracha, much earlier than they would end Shabbos.

Which all leads me to wonder: What would be wrong with saying Kiddush at the Seder after one of these early zmanim of Tzeis? If I can count Sefira with a bracha a mere N minutes after Shkia, why not begin the Seder at that point?

I *DO* realize that Kiddush is the first of the Arba Kosos, and that all the mitzvos of the night are linked together in a manner which requires them to be done at night. But I'm NOT SUGGESTING that we begin the Seder before nighttime. I'm only suggesting that we use an early zman of nighttime for this mitzvah.

After all, The Arba Kosos are not d'Oraisa, right? It not like we might say the Hagada so quickly that the matza would be eaten earlier than we'd end Shabbos. And even if one *would* eat matza earlier than we'd end Shabbos -- is it earlier than Shema was said in a weekday minyan?

Akiva Miller

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