[Avodah] 2 maariv minyans due to the snowstorm

[Akiva Miller via Avodah]

R' Joel Rich asked:

> Our local shul had 2 maariv minyans due to the snowstorm.
> The regular motzai Shabbat minyan and one right after
> shkiah so people could walk home on a major artery before
> it was pitch black.  Would you have said atah chonantanu
> at the shkia minyan? Why?

Yes, of course. Why not? As R' Micha Berger posted, one can even make
havdala al hakos after plag hamincha, so atah chonantanu would seem to be a
kal vachomer.

On the other hand, I can very easily imagine an LOR who might fear that
this could be a michshol, tempting people to be less careful about Shabbos
than otherwise. I can easily see him telling people to omit atah chonantanu
for this reason, or even to daven maariv at home after Shabbos.

> Would you have stayed home to daven at the normal time
> rather than btzibbur earlier?

I'd stay home if my LOR instructed me to do so for Public Policy Reasons
such as I suggested above. But otherwise, why not? All week long the
mincha/maariv minyan gets to maariv before tzeis. If maariv-after-tzeis
trumped minyan, then we might as well abandon the whole concept of
mincha/maariv.

Akiva Miller
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20160126/b0eb5c0e/attachment-0008.html>