Yeah, It's A Rant… Talking In Shul and Attitudes…

Two ways for me to be higher than you.

1. Climb onto a chair.

2. knock you down.

this thread has chosen 2

wolf, you have a very solid point. a certain shul i used to daven in sometimes on shabbos there are people in the shul that come just to talk. why do they come just make a club where they can sit and shmooze. why do they have to come to shul and shmooze during davening when possibly other people are trying to daven. These people may be very learned people, but wolf, i argue with you on one point, their yiras shamayim can’t possibly be that strong. If a guy can sit there shmoozing during chazaras hashatz where the mechaber says on talking during chazaras hashatz “gadol avono minso” “the sin is too big to carry”, his yiras shamayim can’t be too strong. And kal vachomer by kadish which is the most holy part of davening, people just sit there shmoozing! this is beyond me.

wolf, lets get down to it, stop being sarcastic. there is no heter for this whatsoever.

It is NOT ALLOWED. Period. The fact that it is so wide-spread does not make it permissible! It SHOULD cause pain to a sincere Yid praying there. If it interrupts your concentration, double that! I, for one, do understand your anguish and frustration. I daven in a shul that has absolutely NO TALKING – from beginning to end. When in another one, it does grate at my nerves.

Two ideas come to my head (klain-kepig); try what it says (in halacha?) to scream and rebuke them. Maybe come prepared to shul with a printed placard stating the halacha. Keep it by your place, quietly. Second option, if all else fails, try to block out all distractions, know before who YOU stand. Then realize that all the yapping is their problem NOT YOURS.

btw It is permissible to don a hat and jacket in deference and awe for HaShem when davening. It’s called ??? ????? ????? , don’t want to sound scholarly, but that’s what they taught me.

If I’m not mistaken, I think halacha says one should confront / rebuke in this instance. There is a ‘ptur’ if you’ll be harmed (physically?).

there’s also a p’tur if your’e not doing it completely l’shem shamayim

just curious because I am not from ny. are the shuls there extremly large? we have a kehilla of about 100 men and there is no talking during davening or laining. are you speaking of shuls with over 300 pple etc? my only advice is to speak to the rav and he will speak to the kahall at large or find a smaller beis medrash even if you have to walk a little further to get there.

“If you choose not to believe me, then you are free to come out and simply call me a liar.”

i wont get into the *you*, just the action. the action of feeling good by belittling is wrong. the *you* is non of my buisness

___

talking by davening is wrong. what the talkers know, wear or who they are is non of our business.

i tell u about them, its them i am bothered about and not the talking

Why don’t you just ask one of these big talmidei chachamim outright where the source is for the heter to talk during davening? Tell him “Torah he v’tzorich ani lilmod”.

I think some of you are missing the point. Why aren’t they playing the part they’re dressed for?

DY has a good idea…

Why don’t you just ask one of these big talmidei chachamim outright where the source is for the heter to talk during davening? Tell him “Torah he v’tzorich ani lilmod”.

Because I am non-confrontational. I actually confronted someone about talking during davening a few weeks back and immediately regretted it.

I’m not suggesting a confrontation, just a simple question, as a talmid might ask a rebbe.

WolfishMusings,

Please forgive me this rant on your rant…

Do you HONESTLY believe that there is an obscure heter for talking about mundane subjects during davening? Yes or no?

I don’t think you do, otherwise, you would not have titled this thread a rant. Please answer, but I’m guessing you’re not going to bother responding to this post.

Almost everyone here could see the point you were trying to make, and it was a good point, but then you branched off into the absurd.

I have tried to make sense of your polemical style, which follows a pattern of:

1.) I am bothered by [insert a clearly halachically wrong behavior] that is done by people who are makpid on the external Yeshivish customs (e.g., hat and jacket).

2.) I am not makpid on those same external Yeshivish customs.

Left here, it is a fairly strong attack against hypocrisy. Those same people who would never come to davening without a hat and jacket because it would be “wrong” (not adhering to a custom) then talk in shul (an outright aveira). Touchee! But then you invariably continue:

3.) Since those who wear a hat and jacket are superior to me because I don’t wear a hat and jacket, then [insert a clearly halachically wrong behavior] must be somehow correct and I am too unlearned to see how.

OK, a somewhat strange thing to say, but it still fits into your attack on hypocrisy if taken as dripping with sarcasm. Touchee again! However the switch to the “twilight zone” occurs:

4.) Drop points 1 and 2 and argue that you are completely and honestly serious about point 3.

Why do you do this? You as well as the rest of us know what the gedolim say about talking in shul (if you didn’t, which I doubt, an example from the S”A was posted above), so your contention that you honestly believe there is actually a heter for talking in shul collapses like a house of cards. So I am left with the question: why do you want me, a reader, to accept your point 4?

I’m beginning to suspect that you’re hoping someone not paying close enough attention falls into the logical snare you have set, and asks or tells you something along the lines of: if you really believe that these men have some sort of heter for talking in shul, then perhaps you should not be bothered by the talking? That statement is the logical endgame of this absurd line of thinking, but it is fundamentally wrong because the premise is wrong.

Then three months from now, when someone else posts a rant against talking in shul, you can triumphantly trot out: I posted the same thing three months ago, and was told that I was wrong and to stop being bothered by it!

I am sorry that you have had so much trouble at this Yeshivish-style shul. I really, honestly believe that some of the “stuff” you are encountering there is not representative of the entire Yeshivish world. I also don’t feel that the Yeshivish world is “out to get you” despite what you may or may not believe. If it was, you wouldn’t have to lay such elaborate traps to get the condemnation that you seek as proof. On the contrary, you seem well liked in this forum. I enjoy most of your posts, which is why I think I get so bothered by threads like this one.

All the best!

“The rav was not there for Pesach.”

Where was he? And if the rav were there, would the problem have been resolved?

” I know that you are all learned yidden who follow halacha meticulously”

If they are talking during tefillah or the torah reading, they aren’t following halachah meticulously.

However, sometimes that is how I am made to feel.

By whom? Posters in this forum? People in the real world? I know none of us has a full picture of your experience, but it seems from your writing that a lot of the “my way or the highway” attitudes that appear to trouble you so much originate from teenagers or teenagers-at-heart. From dealings with teenagers in the present day to high-school experiences you’ve had. I never had the opportunity to attend a Yeshiva for high school; my only experience is with a public school. It seems, however, that there are unfortunately some common attitudes between both environments. For example, in a public school setting, one who does not wish to be ostracized must follow the clothing and other “minhagim” of the “in crowd.” B”H in the Yeshivos decent clothing and lofty pursuits are what’s considered “cool”, but despite that I do feel that the “in crowd” vs. “out crowd” attitude must go.

When my family and I first moved into our community, we met some extremely warm and friendly people. We also had some unfortunate experiences, rudeness, standoffishness, etc. The latter was extremely scary to us at first, since we were still relatively new to the “religious scene”, but we talked extensively with our Rav and let him guide us. We have B”H made some dear friends from the warm and friendly group, and we stay out of the way of the rudeness (and I believe that if they truly knew the effects of their words or actions on us, they would have acted differently). If we encounter a situation where someone tells us, “don’t you know that you should X”, or “I think the Y you are doing is wrong”, we thank them for the information and then take it to our Rav if needed and ask him what we should do.

Ultimately I have learned that most people are more concerned with what I or others think of them than vice versa.

I do have emotions and sometimes act very strongly on them, even if the end result is not completely logical. Consider it a failing on my part.

I don’t think emotions are a failing. Neither is all illogical behavior necessarily a failing. It was just saddening to me to sense that you felt hurt by a Yeshivish person or persons, and were coming to YWN to try and get others to heap more coals onto yourself.

No one has said that here, so obviously I cannot trot that out.

I was referencing a previous thread about loud and out-of-sync davening. In retrospect, I probably should not have brought that into this discussion.

It’s not that. Heck, the shul that I daven in when there is laining is a largely yeshivish-style shul with no talking… and I have never once ranted against it. On the contrary, it’s a warm welcoming atmosphere where people respect each others’ davening, do not talk or disturb and where I can actually hear the chazzan when he speaks.

That’s amazing that you have found a shul like that. I wonder if it would be worth it to trade in stress for footsteps and go to that shul for all of your davening on Shabbos?

Or perhaps get an associate membership at the other shul so you feel more empowered to say something about the atmosphere?

In other words, it’s not the fact that it’s yeshivish style… it’s the fact that they talk during davening. Had they been a chassidish shteeble, a Young Israel, an MO shul or anything else, I’d be just as bothered.

I apologize for mis-reading you. I interpreted your analysis of the attitude in that shul to be based on this portion of your opening salvo:

I know that you […] wear proper hats and jackets during davening and could easily quote gemarahs, rishonim and achronim that I’ve never heard of.