Sunday, November 06, 2011

Can you daven too slowly?

Most people would answer no, if you want to daven slowly with kavana good for you. However, there are circumstances where it is not the correct thing to do.

I daven in a vasikin minyan where some days we have exactly a minyan and other days we have 11 or 12. What this means is that in order to start chazaras hashatz we need to wait for everyone (or almost everyone) to finish shemoneh esrei so that we have a minyan of people answering. In this situation if the minhag of the shul is to allot 6 minutes for the silent shemoneh esrei and you take 12 which causes everyone else to wait for you, your behavior is not correct. The person who is davening with great kavana is causing a tircha d'tzibura and making everyone wait for his frumkeit.

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