RAMBAM YOMI SHVUI: Tefillah uBirkat Cohanim (10-12)

Tefillah uBirkat Cohanim (10)

10:1- Just saying it is not good enough. You also have to think about it. You cannot be thinking about the game you are going to be watching later, or the electric fix on your house, which you are usually thinking about during the silent prayer.

You need the proper intent. Otherwise, you have to go back and repeat stuff. If there is anything that will get you thinking about what you are saying, it is knowing that you will have to repeat it. Spacing out is only fun for so long. But there is nothing more painful than knowing you will have to re-space out for another whole Amidah (silent prayer, in standing position- you heretic who sits for the standing prayer).

What do you have to repeat? That depends if you are an individual or the chazzan. The chazzan doesn’t repeat in his private prayers. Why? Because then we have to wait even longer for this guy who is getting all excited that he is in the spotlight. As if it is not painful enough to have to wait for the first 10 or so to finish their prayer for the repetition?! The out loud repetition can cover the chazzan's silent prayer.

Even the chazzan needs to have the proper intent. Otherwise, we switch him out and get in a reliever. The community that I am in would be grateful if we had a reliever coming in for the job, full time. One of those relievers you fire the chazzan for. The next time he does not have proper intent on one of those three minute notes, the guy is fired. For $80,000 the apikores can at least have some kavana (proper intent, you heretic who prays for what you are going to be eating for breakfast, when you have Bernie sitting there who needs a multiple bi-pass). The chazzan has to be a good man who is not a heretic. Can't be saying stuff like ‘I will only do this if I don’t have to wear sandles.’ Like he thinks he is a cohen or something. It wouldn't hurt to dress decent either. Not just with that cap and gown. Put effort into what you put on under it.

10:6- If you are not sure if you prayed: For ma’ariv, you can do a questionable repeat. Maariv is not an obligatory prayer, so repeating it is understandable. You can be repeating it all night. You can't start repeating it all day. It is the night prayer. However, Shacharit and Mincha, because they are obligations, you must say them as a voluntary prayer. Do you see what spacing out gets you? A lot of confusion.

10:7-15- Get the prayers right. If you make little mistakes, you sometimes have to go back. Musaf on Shabbat cannot be the weekday prayer. You’ve got to at least say some prayer for rain or dew. If you forget the prayer of the request for dew in the blessing of the year and don’t make it up, in the prayer of H’ Hear Our Voice, then you have to go back to that…Does that make sense to you?...Then don't space out. Look at your siddur and follow the stuff. For crying out loud; which you should do when you are praying.

Talking about little mistakes. With your American accent, you should probably be repeating every prayer you say.

You got to know the protocol for the Rosh Chodesh prayer and the prayers for the 10 Days of Repentance. When you go back. When you don’t. Havdalah in maariv, you don’t go back for. Even so, if you do Havdala in the second maariv (and not in the first), which is your makeup for mincha, because you were sleeping and don’t put an effort into serving H,’ then you have to say a third one, because your second one is now your post Shabbat maariv. Why? Because you forgot the Havdalah in the Maariv, which is the Maariv- the first one. Then, like an idiot, your makeup for your Shabbat afternoon prayer has the separation in it. Making that prayer more correct than your original maariv prayer. Are you following?...Then don't space out. Wake up for once and do some repentance.

Lesson: If you have kavana, proper intent, and you are aware of what you are saying, you don’t have to figure out what you have to repeat.

10:16- Goal is to pray with the congregation. So try to make it in time for the Kedusha and work your messed up showing up late times with that. Also, don’t start your 18 Benedictions before the congregation. That is why you keep on forgetting stuff and spacing out; you are rushing. You keep thinking you've got to get to work and provide for your family. That is the problem. 

Lesson: Being a good Jew has nothing to do with being responsible. It is about having kavana. 'I missed my daughter's recital. But I was in shule, helping with the minyan.' The important thing is that you didn't think or feel bad about missing the recital, which would have hurt your kavana. Kavana comes first.

Tefillah uBirkat Cohanim (11)

11:1-3- 10 people in the city, you got to build a shule. A house of gathering. You even have to kind of force the people to join in this and get a Torah and other sefarim (books, you novel reading heretic). You cannot just do it in the Cohen mishpuchi's house, even if it does help everybody out on their taxes. Lesson: Do not live in a town with just 10 men. You will be committed to that minyan and you will never get in a long Sunday morning. You might get closer to H,' but you will be more tired.

The shule should be built right. Where is the stage? In the center. Torah goes in the ark that the congregation faces. You don't put the Torah in one of those little cubby holes, in the front of your seat. I understand we are all trying to save money, but order and a little respect for the shule is important. The stage being in the middle of the place is a great idea, but sometimes the chazan should not be heard by everybody, because they are bad. In that case, maybe put the stage right in front of the ark, with the chazan facing the ark. The Rambam might disagree with the placement, but it does allow for a more enjoyable conversational experience in shule.

11:4-13- Got to show Kavod for the shule and Beis Medrash:

Old people sit in front. We know most kids nowadays don’t do this on the buses. The signs that say 'stand for old people' have never been followed through. The bigger problem is the older ladies of Israel. They insist they are younger then the teenagers. And that sends the wrong message, for countless reasons. One being that the teenagers see a lot of younger kids with grey hair and walking very bent over, making it hard for them to stand on buses. I personally just went out with a hunched over 16 year old who just went through a triple by-pass. She was a retired lawyer, and child labor is wrong. 

My nephews and nieces are strong child labor activists, as they have also insisted to never take out the garbage.

Clean the floors. Sit properly, according to the custom of the place. Some places like to sit on carpets. That is fine. It might look like a mosque. Even so, if they are nice carpets, they have that cushionie bottom. They even look good on the wall. In Europe they sat on chairs. Not knowing how many would show up, they mostly built pews, which are huge chairs that hold one to 30 people. They are not defined. The more people that show, the more uncomfortable the chair gets. They maximum numbers that can fit in a pew are infinite. 

No joking around and acting all frivolous. Business for charity and mitzvoth is OK. Say something about a non-profit organization and you should be fine. They call it a charity, you can consider it one too. Pepper the joke with a poor guy in it and you are doing a mitzvah. This law also covers the no jumping around in shule, mimicking the Chazan. No jovially swaying back and forth, 'Oh look at me, with my back of the throat voice,' doing your impersonation of Kol Nidrei. 'Look, it took me half an hour for a paragraph.'

You can’t cut through a shule. Freeze tag is a favorite shule activity. Nonetheless, it is not proper to be running on the bimah (stage, you non-Hebrew speaking apikores) yelling, 'Nah nah nah kish kish.' Freeze tag should stay in the halls. Do not take it outside of the shule either, as the anti-Semites will pick up on it right away, and you will end up trying to run away from them. 

If you need to go through for something, you have to say a pasuk or sit down for a second. Show a bit of love. Singing a nigun (song without words, you non-Hebrew reading apikores) can also help. That makes it look like you are meditating, and I am sure that counts for something.

If you are davening, you can take the shortcut after you finish and leave through the other side. You give a little and take a little. You have to commit a bit, and then you can take the shortcut. Running through the shule, sit down for forty five minutes, then you take the shortcut. This way nobody knows you are using the shule for the shortcut. They think you are sitting down and davening.

If the shule or Beis Medrash was destroyed, you still have to treat it with kavod and keep it looking like something that might deserve to be rebuilt. Mow the lawn for crying out loud. And you wonder why Jews do not more their own lawns. 

Start building the new shule before you take down the old shule. You have to have a new one standing, before you take down the old one, unless it was partially destroyed, such as rotted away. This is why there is always a building fund. You heard it hear. The explanation has been given. 

Another reason I came up with for not destroying the old one before the new one is up is because builders nowadays are real shoddy. 

11:14-21- When you sell the stuff, you can only purchase something that is more holy than what it is.

A Beit Midrash trumps a shule. You can turn a shule into a Beit Midrash, but not the opposite.

Selling, you have to buy holier. The Torah is the holiest. Things getting closer to the Torah are holier.

You cannot purchase one of those new electric motorized bicycles, even if they are really cool.

When it comes to selling the shule and all of that: A town can make decisions to use the money for anything and sell it. However, a city needs a lot of decision makers to be involved, as it is built for everybody. And hear I explain to you the board. These are people who sit down and make sure that money is not spent. A meeting is what they call their get-togethers. Their main objective is to keep tradition going. They accomplish this by making sure that no new ideas are passed through them. Drinking coffee ads to the allure.

What can you use the money for? In the villages, it all depends on what you agree on. Which is again, why you have the board, to make sure there is no agreement.

A big street where the people meet every once in a while does not have holiness. We do not consider protesting to be an obligatory religious duty. 

A house or yard where people daven sometimes, is not considered holy either. Why? Because they are not set aside for holiness. Maybe if you people learned to treat your homes properly. Maybe if you cleaned it once in a while, then there might be a reason to call your home 'a place of religious worship.' And yes, I would help get you tax write-off. 

Tefillah uBirkat Cohanim (12)

Moshe declared the reading of the Torah every three days. Ezra added some stuff, like to do it at Shabbat Mincha too, so that the time wasting people would hear it. The people that miss Shacharit, because they are always wasting their time. 'Got to get sleep.' 'It is my day off.' There is no day off from H.' But Ezra noticed that people were getting dumber, so he added another service, along with all the other services he added. Ezra liked adding stuff. 

Ezra also added the rule of threes. It has to be three people and at least three psukim each. 10 in total.

You also read Torah on Yom Tovs, Roch Chodoesh, fast days. We read the Torah any time you want to add 10 to 40 minutes to davening. That is the tradition.

12:5-9- You do the Barchu thing (blessing for the Torah, you apikores who reads by himself). People have to listen when the person is reading. You cannot start talking about your ideas for better community or learning Torah. You don't wait till everyboyd is quiet, so that you can get out your thoughts, which you could have gotten out while the gabbai was calling up the guy.Why did you wait?! Why couldn't you be like everybody else and get out your thoughts when you are supposed to?! Why are you being so loud right now?! You listen. Which is something you rarely do. Why are you learning Torah, when it is being read?! How about that for a question? Most people space out when the Torah is being read. Most people are trying to figure out why we have to sit through this painful slow reading. Most of us are trying to understand why we celebrate Bar Mitzvahs, instead of just standing there yelling at the kid for making other mistakes with their lives. How is that for an answer? 

There are problems that we are all witness to. These young teenagers make a lot of dumb mistakes.

If you are always learning, if it is your job, then you don’t have to stop that. You can continue learning, instead of listening to some apikores who doesn't understand the words they are reading, as they probably just messed up the end of the Pasuk (sentence, you apikores who probably can't even read the Torah, without vowels).

You cannot call yourself up to the Torah. You cannot be a Ba’al Gayva (an egotistical fool, you self-centered heretic who owes David 600 dollars). You need to have somebody call you up, even if you are a leader yourself. It sounds messed up singing, 'And now getting up to the Torah is me. I want to thank me for calling me up...And a big Yasher Koyach to me. I will now be lifting the Torah for me...' There is a reason why we have a Minyan.

The reader has to get it right and repeat it until he gets the pronunciation right. This isn’t one of those, ‘He is trying. Lets encourage him and make him feel good about his trying.’ No. We do not want a bunch of screw ups. You get it right.

Interestingly, if it is quick, you can skip around the Torah a bit. There probably has to be reasons for your messed up childhood and lack of care for Gd. Speed is for Kavod HaTzibur (honor for the congregation, you slow davening heretic who still uses transliteration).

12:10-12- From the times of Ezra, there was also a translator. But they translated Pasuk by pasuk. This was implemented to add more time to the ordeal. It was supposed to be the younger person doing the translating. It made it more subjective. I heard a translation by my nephew recently. He messed up stuff that happened to our people. I do not know what they are teaching in Jewish Day Schools, but that was not the Torah that I read. A lot of creativity is what they are teaching. Listening to the kid was a reminder of the Golden Calf.

12:13-15- We are more relaxed with the Navi (the prophets, you apikores sheker- false apikores, if I have to translate this for you). The translator can translate more psukim at once. Even so, when skipping, it should be done before the translator finishes. You don't start playing around and skipping to random places after the translator is done, messing up the whole system of the translation. You are killing the guy's job. Kind of surprise when I am standing there translating and finished; next thing you know, you are translating my translation into the original text. Point is you translate, after you read it.

Then there are the blessings we say. The one reading the Navi also has to read from the The Torah first. The reason for this is in the Rashi (Megilah 23a), to show that the Torah is the main thing. A little respect. If the person didn't have to get called up to the Torah, you would have all the people with money only coming up for the Haftorah, where they can read it from the book, with the vowels, because they are not very smart. It would start huge fights, as everybody would want the honor of doing barely anything impressive. 

12:16-24- Different amounts read for each of the times. You can add to the number of readers called up to the Torah. But we do have a set amount. We do not want to make it as painful as a Bar Mitzvah, every Shabbat.

A woman can’t read for the congregation, out of respect for the congregation. Reason given is that they were not called upon to have this obligation. They also don’t have the obligation to learn. Since she doesn’t have these obligations, it is not kavod to the congregation to have her preaching assimilation to the congregation.

Kohan gets called to the Torah first nowadays, even if he is not that smart. It should be a wise person first, but nobody wants to deal with this. It stops arguments. And nobody wants to argue with an idiot.

The Aliyah laws go on with the idea of calling up the wiser first, and then going to the less smart. But the ender is also a big spot. The Haftorah spot is a big spot, because of the vowels used in the writing nowadays. It is that extra time on the stage and the extra blessings you get to say. Congregants eat it up. 

Look in in your siddur to see the order of when you read and on what days. It also tells you how much to read. A little opening up of a prayer book doesn't just make you a non-heretic. It makes you definitively closer to H,' and somebody who can argue with the Chazan and scream at the Torah reader. 

You don’t read from a chumish, out of respect for the congregation. This isn't third grade here.

You don’t roll the Torah scroll, because it is a bother to the congregation. Rolling is generally forbidden on Shabbat. This includes cigarettes. You cannot smoke on Shabbat, even if it is an e-cigarette. If i have to educate you about this stuff now, then there is going to have to be a Rambam 101 course, where I teach you about acronyms and why you wasted your childhood years, not in Yeshiva. 

You roll at a different time. This is why you have 2 Torahs when a shule is reading two separate parts. For this reason, we do not allow for poor congregants. We need people who can buy Torahs. Even so, the way some shules move on the  closing of one Torah, it would be much faster to roll one of them. Point: The hagbah and galila guys should be seasoned. I understand there is no respect for the galila guy. We have to give him a bit more respect. Maybe have a little galilah section, outside of the shule, where they can stand and talk, and look cool, even without cigarettes.