[Avodah] deprive the minyan of the opportunity to say tachanun

Akiva Miller akivagmiller at gmail.com
Thu Mar 15 19:05:04 PDT 2018


.

R' Joel Rich wrote:

> He was asked whether one who has the choice of going to two
> minyanim can choose to go to the one where a chatan is davening
> in order to skip tachanun. His response is if he is going for
> that reason it’s not appropriate (he’s running from a mitzvah),
> but if he’s going to be part of the simcha or for the midat
> harachamim (the attribute of mercy) it’s permitted [back to my
> favorite question — OK, but what does HKB"H want of me?]

Here's my answer to that last question: HKB"H wants us to be honest.

What is right for one person is wrong for another, or even for that
same person at a different time or under different circumstances. If
he genuinely feels the simcha, then he should not be saying tachanun,
but if he is fooling himself into a mistaken belief that he feels the
simcha, then he *should* be saying tachanun.

R' Ben Waxman wrote:

> A few months ago I was in the main shul in a yishuv. The shul
> was quite large. There was a psak there by the shul rav stating
> in a small community shul, where everyone knows everyone, it
> makes complete sense that if there is a chatan, then one doesn't
> say tachanun. However, in this shul, in which strangers pray
> there every day and even not all the members know everyone, the
> presence of a chatan doesn't really add to their simcha. That
> being the case, visitors to the shul should say tachanun, even
> if the congregation doesn't.

I am truly happy to hear of a rav that has so much seichel. It upsets
me time after time, when I am at a minyan in my own community, and we
skip tachanun, and I have to ask several people until I find one who
knows which simcha had occurred. I think it would be wonderful to
establish a practice of someone getting up after Chazaras Hashatz, and
announcing that, "In celebration of XYZ, we are skipping tachanun,"
and THEN go to kaddish.

Akiva Miller


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