RAMBAM YOMI: Tefilah uBirkat Kohanim (8-9)

תפילה וברכת כהנים

Tefillah uBirkat Cohanim (8)

Things are heard when you pray with a minyan (a quorum, you heretic who doesn't understand English). I understand you like yelling, which makes you heard in the minyan. Over here, we are talking about praying together. Doesn't mean you always have to be noticed.

You should also run to shule and go inside a bit. Shouldn’t be running outside of the shule, in the halls. Maybe go inside for the prayers every once in a while. 

If there is a minyan at the Kiddush Club, are the prayers heard? If the prayers are for getting out of shule for the rabbi's sermon and being allowed back in under the influence, then yes.

8:3-6- You need 10 people, as that is the amount of a group. We see this from the 10 spies, who were considered a group, even after Yehoshua and Calev were not counted with them. It takes 10 people to kill the redemption for the people. You can't play a real game of basketball without 10 people. You need 10 people to carry a heavy rowboat. You need 10 people to make a class feel like you are in a school that has students. You need 10 people to tell you that you are extremely messed up, for you to feel like you are a loser. It takes 10. 

(VaYikrah 22:32) ‘And I will be made holy from within Israel.’ From here we learn that all things that are holy, need 10 people. Kaddish, leading a group in prayers- like the brachot of Shema- where they say ‘amen,’ reading from the Torah with a Bracha. You can do stuff alone, but it is pathetic. You can't say the Barchu, and there you are in the living room, getting yelled at for not answering the phone, because you are in the middle of the silent prayer, saying prayers that are not even heard.

8:7-12- Got to have Kavod for the tzibur (a little respect for the congregation, you heretic with bright colored neon clothing). Pick somebody to lead, who has a beard.

Somebody who messes up the pronunciation of letters, can’t lead. You think you are thanking H' for giving us life, and this heretic, with no beard, is up there talking about a wife and talking about smoking in Hebrew.

During Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur of the Yovel, even the people who understand stuff can be yotzei with the chazzan (fulfill their obligation with the cantor, you heretic who prays at a synagogue with a cantor, because it sounds decent- Oy). Why? Because it is long, and not many people can concentrate that long. Which is why I say that davening should not take longer than 10 minutes. I don't think there is one child nowadays that can concentrate on a full length show, without looking at their phone, to see if somebody thinks they are important. I am also proposing to make Shabbat 3 hours long, so that the next generation will be able to handle the no access to electronics.
He also has to be in the same room, or what is considered a part of the room that the congregation is in. As much as you would rather not want to listen to the chazan go off for thirty minutes on eight notes, at the beginning of Shacharit, you have to be in the same room as him. And you probably shouldn't be drinking alcohol in that room either.

You can’t phone in the lead on Shacharit, even if it is a video conference. The person has to be there to lead.

And the chazan had to look respectful. If you can't find a beard, at least make sure the guy is wearing pants. The chazan cannot have his shoulders showing, no matter how metro-sexual it is. cannot be the chazan. So make sure the chazan has a bad sense of fashion, or at least somebody that is not a high school girl in the 1980s.

Tefillah uBirkat Cohanim (9)

Look in your siddur. It goes through all the order of Shacharit, Mincha and Maariv. Maybe stop trying to do everything by heart. You forgot where you put the keys.

The chazan repeats the silent prayer (Amida), for those who don’t know. You should know. If you don't know, then you haven't been to shule and you should feel guilty. But we assume that you don't know, because you know so little and you never cared to be educated. And so do the repetition all the time.

You stand in your spot until the chazzan comes to the kedusha (the prayer of holiness we say in the middle of the repetition, where you stand, you heretic who is probably reading this sitting right now). Otherwise, there would be 20 people running around the shule yelling, 'When is this guy going to start the repetition already. I have places to be.' Which begs the question why you came to shule in the first place. The reason. Because you have to, you heretic.

9:7- You don’t go crazy in the Tachanun/prayer of compassion, with all your little additions. You don’t start talking about showing mercy and sending away a mother bird. That is a not the correct translation. Just do what it says. 'The one who does not kill the mother and the child and the same day.' That is not even compassion. That is a mitzvah from the Torah. If that meant compassion, then we wouldn't slaughter animals. What kind of religion would that be? Not one that i want to be part of.

You also don’t start praising with every name you can think of for H.’ Just stick with what the rabbis said to do. There is a reason they have to repeat the Amida for you.

9:9- At night, we do not repeat the prayer, because it is not an obligatory prayer.  So if somebody is in shule who doesn’t know how to do it, no big woop. That is why you see a lot of not smart people showing up to the evening prayer services, sitting there and spacing out, because some guy with a beard, who didn't have a minyan, dragged them in. It isn’t as if they know why we repeat the other ones anyways. He probably doesn’t even know what ‘amen’ means. 

Amen to that.

9:10-11- Because people come out on Shabbat and we do not want them to go home alone, we stall and the chazzan says a quick repetition. The paragraph one, that you would say if you were in at a non-denominational event. There are the slow daveners, the ones who come late, and the people who like to talk a lot. What do all of these have in common? They can care less about the fact that I am hungry.

People staying alone at shule is a scary thing, late at night. That is usually the time the Anti-Semites like to come and spray paint the shule. Tagging it with 'Jew,' to let Jews know that Jews go there. Jews that don't know how to read the Amida.

Then there is musaf added for Shabbat and holidays. Another prayer that you do not know, which has to be repeated. Which is why shule takes 3 hours. 

Lesson (L): Look in your siddur for once. I am sick of having to tell you how to do all of this.