Multiple Simcha’s in one shul on shabbos?

amother

Silver

Sat, Dec 29 2018, 11:11 pm

This has come up recently and wondering if your shul has an official policy on multiple Simcha’s on one shabbos in shul?
Do Simcha’s overlap? How is the leining/kiddish split
Any other guidelines to make it work

amother

Indigo

Sun, Dec 30 2018, 4:51 am

Our former shul had official rules for overlapping smachot, which happened often as it is a large shul. In general, whoever booked first has priority - for example, Bar Mitzvah vs Aufruf.
Usually the baalei simcha could work it out amicably. There's also a hashkama minyan where you can make your simcha, doesn't have to be at the main minyan.
If you have the same idea about what kind of kiddush you want to make, people will share it. Or the one without priority can choose to make the kiddush off site.
If there are 2 bar mitzvahs I think the shul tells the people to work out the leining themselves if they want to share. Some people will choose to push off the Bar Mitzvah to the following week.

LittleDucky

Sun, Dec 30 2018, 2:18 pm

We have had that happen. Sometimes you can plan around it and sometimes you can't, say a Bris on Shabbos. There isn't an official policy at our shul. Rav just calls up and asks if we are ok, if we can change etc. Usually the two parties work something out, often sharing the kiddush and making it a "super one" with lots of extras that we don't normally get even at a nicer kiddush. Our shul isn't a fancy one to begin with and is normally into "achdus and sholom". We have shared often, mostly when one party cannot switch shabbosim. And everyone wishes everyone a Mazel tov. We even had "conflicting" events (baby bottles and tefilin themes) and everyone just laughed after it was explained. Only once did we have any issue- we had reserved SS for a siyum by my husband and his chavrusa. Another also sponsored it for a yartzeit (I think after we did) but we weren't told. Usually ok and everyone is fine with it but when setting up she bossed me around, kicked me out of the kitchen, complained I tried to make any decisions or even tried to help as "it was her SS". I tried calmly to say it was ours too but realized she was too emotional about it and just left the area until SS. Sholom is more important.