Michael el Chayil

It was just a few short years ago (pre-pandemic, since last year has been anything but short), we were spending a Shabbos with our grandchildren and their parents in Florida. Friday night and we are all at the table. Finished with Kiddush and Motzi, then the younger children get dessert and up to bed. Perfect. One glitch -- the nine year old boy (oldest of younger children) is back downstairs? "Someone," he says eyeing his older brother, "didn't turn the light off in our room." Of course, at this point it doesn't really matter how/who/when/why the light was turned on. On the other hand, this is also not the time for a mussar shmuz on that particular topic. What to do? In that case, the light was part of a ceiling fan and the fan was off. I was therefore able to drape a blanket over the fan blades far enough from the bulbs to avoid a fire hazard, but close enough to darken the room sufficiently for the two boys to sleep. But nowadays we have -- tada -- LED li...

Here's the sitch, as they say: Two people have a yarhtzeit for a parent and want to daven from the amud. No problem, just make two minyanim; happens all the time. Of course you need the resources to do that. Again, no problem. We have 20. 10 stay in the main beis medrash and start davening ma'ariv. 10 join together in a side room. Just before ברכו, one -- we'll call him Yaakov -- says, "Oh, I only daven after nightfall, but I'll stay and learn so y'all can still daven." Whoops. Short background/introduction before continuing the narrative: As both the Mishna Brura and R' Moshe pasken, unless you have 10 actually davening, it's not called תפילה בציבור (see Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim I:28 for detailed explanation). Having 10 adult Jewish men in the room, a majority of whom are davening (some say you need seven, aka "recognizable majority") allows one to say דברים שבקדושה, such as קדיש and ברכו ... and even קדושה, but it still doesn't have...