By Rabbi Yechiel Spero
Let me tell you an absolutely beautiful Corona story.
There is a fellow in Toronto who asked Rav Shlomo Miller if he can make a porch minyan, and Rav Shlomo paskened for him that there was no problem with it. And so, he had a minyan every day on his porch and in his neighbor’s porch; together they had a minyan, and that’s what they did every day from Pesach and on.
Well, on Lag Ba’omer at night, at 9:00 at night, they decided they wanted to have a little bit of a kumzits. But before they played music at 9:00 at night, the father decided he wanted to ask two of the elderly women who lived near them, Jewish women, but completely not religious. And he knocked on one’s door and he says to her, “I don’t know if you know who I am…”
She cuts him off and says, “Oh, I know very well who you are! You’re the group that I pray with every morning.”
“Pray with?”
He says, “Yes. Ever since you’ve started praying on your porch, I lay in bed and I pray with you. It’s been decades, but it’s so beautiful. And not only that, but I called up my son and I said to him, ‘You find your tallit and your tefillin and you pray as well. These people are praying, even in the snow (in Toronto it snowed after Pesach) if they can pray, then you need to pray as well.'”
And of course, she was more than happy to allow them to play music and to sing.
We have to remember how important it is for us to be ‘living Kiddush Hashem’, every moment of this difficult and challenging situation. And Im Yirtzeh Hashem, as we continue to be Mekadesh Shem Shomayim, we will inch closer and closer to our return to our Batei Knesios and Batei Midrashos, Bekarov.
Inspiration Daily
{Matzav.com}
Thank you. Baruch Hashem our local Shuls have reopened for teffila, albeit un-publicized. The misyavnim are losing. We must come back to our Father, in his home, the mikdash miat.
Wow! what a beautiful story, Read this and weep, Rabbi B and Dr. D
Yes, the KH was him communicating with his neighbor. On another Toronto street (Fairhlome), a neighbor was furious about the porch minyan and insisted they conclude each Shachris or minyan within 30 minutes from start.
self-hating Jew or anti-semite?
2:19, if this neighbor’s 30 minute request is based on noise, it is 100% legal to make reasonable noise from 7am to 10pm in most locations, so you don’t have to but may comply if the neighbor asks very very nicely. On the other hand, if the neighbor’s issue is davening per se, then tell the jerk to pound sand, don’t try to please the unappeasable.
I live on Fairholme, and our minyan is appreciated by our neighbors as well.
So there’s a reason for the lockup after all…
To all the cities that made porch and backyard minyanim work kol hakavod! You didn’t look for excuses to not have to have minyan! Those that are still not allowing any minyan at all, shame on you! There are ways to have minyan safely. When you want something badly enough you figure out a way to make it work safely! And as you can see, if done properly it will make a kiddish Hashem!
Today I davened in my first lechatchila minyon in about 2 months. My minyon this morning was still outdoors with social distancing but all participants were in the same driveway. In the middle of davening it hit me how Hashem literally turned over the world. Before Purim shuls and yeshivos were hiring guards and putting locks on the shuls. Today part of my minyon was standing on the sidewalk of a major street in Brooklyn. Most porch Minyonim were doing the same the last two months.
I hope they followed social Distancing
Don’t be so concerned.
I guess everything can be done properly and unfortunately improperly. If you go to your fellow neighbors and approach them the way that individual did in the story then you stand a better chance to get along. When you’re nice and considerate often times they feel it.
I would think that the minyanim at this point is what is protecting us be”h. All those people trying to lobby against what our Highly qualified health department guidelines given should find other ways to help the community. We need people to help us open up “shop” this is our lifeline just as good as beaches in EY which opened and Malls in the US. We must do something quickly. People are gonna get very / too comfortable this way ch’v.