Makom Kavua – Being Kicked out of your Seat

if I am late and a guest has taken my place I ask them to move over a place or two

If you are late you shouldn’t ask him to move in middle of davening. It isn’t his fault you’re late and he shouldn’t have to interrupt his davening due to your lateness. Especially when it’ll now be hard, if at all possible, for him to find another seat.

Many are mixing up the two topics.
a) Makom Kavuah b) חזקה on seats.
Those are two separate issues, regarding moving a guest over.
MAKOM KAVUAH –
I don’t see where the Shu”A or Talmud ever intended ‘Makom Kavuah’ as a ” right” over someone else sitting in your seat – all it says – is that YOU should make sure to do everything possible to daven in a Makom Kavuah, as they would say in Brisk: it’s a דין Din in the גברא NOT in the ” “חפצא (i.e. the seat) – the concept of Makom Kavuah does not give any rights. Yes, you can absolutely request (or arrive earlier!), but the person has no obligations to move once he is seated.
(Note – I just searched and saw some modern day poskim discussing the issue, but no one has any source where we see Makom Kavuah is a “right”)
CHAZAKA ON SEATS –
As others have pointed out, that is all up to the nature tekanahי of the Shul etc.
Is there any such Chazaka in the first place?
(Note, a mere place is not monetary, hence, is not exactly Chazaka of Baba Kama, but there is a concept of Chazaka as any right to a Mitzva, as pointed out by Ubiq..) How long and what defines Chazaka ? Is it a private Shul? Is it a public shul? Is it a community shul? Did he pay for the seat? Did the Gabay give him the seat? Is it a shul that everyone has their seat either given or purchased etc.?

I presented this question to Maran Reb Chaim Kenievsky. He answered the following.
One may tell a person sitting in his makom kavuah to kindly move, even if there is not another seat available, (especially if he is a member and paid for that seat, this applies to seats he purchased for his children so that they may sit next to their father).
Rav Chaim shlita said it is the responsibility of the gabai to ensure guests will be accomadated with a place to sit. He added that the shul should have folding chairs available for such a situation

Putting aside common sense, which is the norm on some of these threads, a yid walking into a new shul typically doesn’t first search for a seating chart hidden behind the door or wait for the gabbai sheini or shlishi (who was supposed to be standing by the entry door and instead is schmoozing with his chevrah by the bimah) to point him to a seat not covered by the local minhagim governing makom kavua. My experience is that 9 of 10 times, you walk in and absent a simcha where you search out the family, you take whatever seat appears empty.

Edited -79

GAON
Well put (you will note,I did not mention makom kavua in any of my posts on this thread)
Though Im not sure why it depends on the “Takanah” of the Shul and not practice. yes in a shul where people sit anywhere any week sure there is no chazaka. but if the same person sits in the same seat week after week year after eyar, why wouldnt chazaka apply in the absence of a set policy one way or the other?

Realisticguy
” if your rave is not well versed in “fake halacha” then I suggest you find a new rav”
No thanks. I much prefer the real kind.
Though dont get me wrong the fake kind is great. I literally laughed at the assertion that it is “assur” (your word) to ask someone to please sit in another seat especially when said seat is provided. So please keep it up.
Earlier I asked if this “halcha” applies if he is using my Sefer or bed as well, or is it limited to seats?

GadolHadorah
“Putting aside common sense, which is the norm on some of these threads, a yid walking into a new shul typically doesn’t first search for a seating chart hidden behind the door or wait for the gabbai sheini or shlishi”

Reverting back to common sense, He deosnt need a seating chart nor a Gabai. he can ask the first guy he sees “hi Reb Yid Im new here is there an open seat” 99/100 he will get one and not inconvenience anybody.

Meanwhile, getting back onto topic. I too, like iacisrmma, arrive early to Shul. I try to be helpful when I see strangers looking for a seat, to direct them to available seats. It is a very difficult task because our shul is usually quite full. The Gabbai has to know exactly who is not going to be coming on a particular Shabbos or Yom Tov.

One of the difficulties I have is that there are people who consistently come very late, but sometimes not at all. Their empty seats are an enticing draw for otherwise ‘homeless’ (seat-less) guests, who inevitably end up sitting there. I am always torn with the indecision whether to tell them that the seats are reserved and potentially look like a mean idiot when no one else comes to claim the seats, or to say nothing and then painfully watch when the rude seat-owners show up late and ask the guests to leave their seats. By that time, there are usually absolutely no other seats available.

I have on occasion given up my own and my son’s seats and stood in the aisle in order to rescue guests from the embarrassment of this banishment.

It bothers me greatly, but I basically said it all right at the start, when I mentioned that I always come early to Shul. Obviously I might be unhappy with people that do not care enough to ever come on time, but especially if they are mean to guests as well.

GH: You wrote “a yid walking into a new shul typically doesn’t first search for a seating chart hidden behind the door or wait for the gabbai sheini or shlishi”.

In my shule the seating chart is not hidden. It is just to the right of the entrance door, at eye level, just above the poster with the weekly schedule and just below the sign that reads “Please do not sit in someone’s seat, they have been purchased for the year. Please see the gabboyim for assistance”. There is another seating chart with the same sign pasted on the wall once inside the shule.

IIRC, there’s a shule in my old American city that had a rule that seats remained reserved until Yishtabach, and after that seats were available to anyone who wanted to sit there.

I think Ubiquitin is absolutely correct here.

There is nothing wrong with asserting yourself, obviously in a proper way, and reclaiming your seat. Of course, the right thing is to try to help find available seats for guests (regardless of whether they took your seat).

In my opinion and [limited] experience, both as a regular and as a guest, this does not embarrass anybody. It is to be expected, and should not even be uncomfortable for the guest.

I do agree that at some point during Davening (in my mind, this point is Borchu), any latecomers relinquish their “rights” in this regard.

As a guest, I never assume a seat is available; I ask someone sitting nearby if the seat I want is open. Being a guest does not exempt you from common decency either. Unless you are completely new to the concept of Shul, you should realize that people have seats.

The place where I usually Daven is very popular, and it is very difficult to get a seat. If I come at a reasonable time to find that a guest has parked himself in my seat, and that I therefore don’t have one (which has happened a number of times), I don’t say anything, but I do think that the guest is wrong.

I once came early to shul, just to find that a guest (whom I knew was a family member of someone who sits near me) had “claimed” my seat with his Tallis bag!

For the record, Rav Shlomo Kluger directly applied the Halacha of Chezkas Karka to seats in Shul. He was asked regarding a Shul that had expanded its building, whether the members’ seats were to be awarded relative to the layout (next to the wall), or if they stayed in the exact location of the previous seat. He ruled that the Makom Kavua was the actual place of the seat because that was the land on which the member had a Chazaka, and not its proximity to the wall.

Joseph: I never said that guests have to wait until “borchu” to sit. In the shule where I daven, it is possible that if a guest is sitting in someone’s seat he can be asked to move by the one who purchased the seat up until Shochen Ahd.

There is a lot of back and forth regarding shuls where someone has some actually “entitlement’ to a seat by virtue of some sort of purchase or endowment of a specific seat (although most MO shuls only “sell seats” for the yamim noraim). For example, when I go to a simcha at a Young Israel somewhere, I rarely have encountered anyone telling me “that seat is taken” by someone not yet in shul. I’m certain that other shuls the issue is as much an entitlement by virtue of years of having sat in the same place rather than a financial entitlement to the seat. However, some of the comments seem to conflate the two different situations.

GH
“I’m certain that other shuls the issue is as much an entitlement by virtue of years of having sat in the same place rather than a financial entitlement to the seat. However, some of the comments seem to conflate the two different situations.”

thats becasue halachicly they arent neccesarily different. a Kinyan on land can be made by either ?KEsef or chazaka.

Iacrisma
“he whole thread can be boiled down to the essential questions:”
I like your essential questions
however, I think reasonable people can disagree on most of those, thus I dont find them particularly interesting.

what I did not think reasonable people can argue with was the point made by several posters that astounded me. Namely: that It is wrong (one poster wrote “assur”) to ask someone to switch seats no matter at what point during davening the request is made, no matter how nicely you ask, no matter how good of a seat is provided.

Apparently seating charts, at the time of year when it is customary in almost every shul to “sell” or assign seats mean nothing to some people. in our minyan, there is a rather large easel right next to the entrance with a very simple to read and understand map of the shul, its seats and who is assigned what seat, and when I got to shul for mincha erev rosh hashana (between 5 and 10 minutes before the posted start time) there was someone sitting in my seat.

Outside of the yamim noraim when the shul if full and there are generally no available seats, if you walk into shul and someone is in “your” seat, and that person is not a regular, one would generally just sit elsewhere where a seat is available and avoid the awkward request to tell someone to move elsewhere. There are times where common sense and the desire to make a strange yid feel welcome and avoid embarrassment should take precedence over your “entitlement’, whether real or implied.

Joseph, I agree that the precise point at which it would be wrong to evict a guest from your seat in Shul is open to debate. Your opinion that this is at ברוך שאמר is certainly valid, although I disagree. In any case, I think this is a footnote to the main subject of this thread. You apparently agree with the basic premise that there is nothing inherently wrong with asking a guest to vacate your seat, provided that this is done in an appropriate manner and at a reasonable time, whatever definitions you would assign those terms.

I do not believe in forcing guests to “stand until Borchu.” Guests should be welcomed by whoever sees them, and guided to available seats as soon as they come to Shul. If this is not done for any reason, a guest should find an open seat and ask whether it is available.

In answer to your question, “If someone asks a guest to move in your Shul, who is responsible for finding him a new seat — especially if by time the regular guy finishes his coffee and arrives just before שׁוֹכֵן עַד there are no more other seats?”:

I think it is obvious that basic human decency requires that the member who evicted the guest should try to help find him a seat. Likewise, it is an entry level responsibility of ואהבת לריעך כמוך to help any guest in Shul find a seat, regardless of who forced him out of their seat.

Your implied derision of the “regular guy finish[ing] his coffee and arriv[ing] just before שוכן עד,” I think, is unnecessarily judgmental. The responsibility to make one’s co-congregants feel comfortable does not end with guests, or with helping to find seats. It certainly includes having a welcoming and accepting attitude.

Why would a guest get up for some rude jerk who tries to kick them out of a seat.

Why would a guest take a seat without asking if it’s anyone’s makom unless he’ a rude jerk?

Also, I’m trying to figure out if you’re in a mixed shul, or are a woman who wears a tallis.

Catch/Ubiq:
“thats becasue halachicly they arent neccesarily different. a Kinyan on land can be made by either ?KEsef or chazaka.”
“for the record, Rav Shlomo Kluger directly applied the Halacha of Chezkas Karka to seats in Shul. ”

Not that I disagree with both of you, but the demographics of RS Kluger’s typical shul and others have entirely changed. The typical Shul all pre-war seforim discuss was the “town’s” shul, meaning, it was built by the town, owned by the town, and really belonged to any person residing in the town, thus it can be obtained by means of Chazakah, Yerusha etc. as the Muchzak is part of the actual ownership. i.e. the “Town”. Whereas nowadays, shuls are either privately owned or are owned by the “members”. There is rarely any concept of a “town’s shul” anymore. E.g. in a Towns shul, I doubt that any Gabay or anyone else had any right to move anyone from his chazaka seat – it was totally his.
Therefore, I am not so sure how exactly and if “chazakah” is anything of an ownership here. I don’t think in the case of Rav S Kluger, regarding reconstructing a shul can be applied to nowadays shuls. I believe “chazakah” does give you sort of a right” over any other person. Nothing less than someone taking a seat and is “his” for now.

We need to see the responsum in entire to see what its based upon, and see if it can be applied.

Let’s face it, those people who kick guests out of their seat, by and large generally do not help the poor guest find another seat. Those that do are in the minority, by far.

“if a seat belongs to someone, shouldn’t it be labeled?”

not necessarily. My car isnt labeled. You should still assume it is someone’s

“And if it’s not, how can you expect someone to know?”
Ask. If unsure how I put a direct phrase in quotes above. It is only 5 words long, really not hard to remember

“And if he doesn’t know and is sitting there, isn’t it assur to interrupt him in the middle of davening no matter how politely it’s done?”
No. There is no such issur (depending where in daveing he is holdig though even in birchas krias shema Im not sure what the issur would be, though it isnt nice, and birchas krias shema is waaaay to late to ask people to move in my opinion

Joseph
“Let’s face it, those people who kick guests out of their seat, by and large generally do not help the poor guest find another seat.”

joseph I agree. Though Im not sure they HAVE to, of course it is nice to, and there is amitzvah to be nice.
That being said, I can see people disagreeing on this point.