Why is everyone blaming the moms and kids? Blame the...

care4u

Wed, Mar 08 2023, 9:52 am

amother Phlox wrote:

If your baby is crying and you missed a word, you are already not yotzei. Why cause others to miss hearing the megilla properly. being selfish works both ways. Those little kids/ babies don't need to hear megilla. The only solution, especially for single parents is to go to a later reading, that will have babysitting available.
, if you still miss a word, due to a child, that same mother still needs to go hear megllla again, anyways. Do you think she is going to try to hear megilla again? Why take that chance and cause others to lose out of hearing the megilla properly. The Baal Koreh is not stopping, unless to correct his own mistakes. he is not stopping if he can't hear what is going on in the ladies section. Most shuls accoustics are not that great.

There seems to be a basic misunderstanding of halacha on the site.
Chazal don't ask for impossible things.
If you miss a word you are allowed to say it to yourself quietly quickly until you catch up to where the BK is up to.
This is allowed for up to half of the Megilla.
Ppl who are saying there was noise and they missed one word and they have to go to another leaning are obviously lacking halachic knowledge on this issue.
To make it more clear, technically, if they were up to the 7th perek and a baby started screaming and you needed to say the whole rest of it to yourself you are still 100% yotzei.
While I agree that people probably shouldn't be bringing noisy kids to shul, there needs to be a little more understanding by Megilla, especially since it is not that difficult to make up the few words you might miss here or there from a child who is mostly well behaved but starts whispering for a second.
Ppl please chill.

amother

Strawberry

Wed, Mar 08 2023, 10:10 am

Didn’t read through all the responses. I find it interesting though. I recently started coughing randomly (I’ll be fine for a while and then need to cough a few times). Of course I needed to cough during Megilla lol. But the Baal korei simply stopped and repeated the word. And it happened a couple of times. I felt so bad about the whole thing but at the end of the day thanks to him it was totally fine. He also paused when someone scraped the chair back loudly. Large room but loud acoustics so if it’s quiet you can hear everything.

amother

Antiquewhite

Wed, Mar 08 2023, 10:17 am

amother Melon wrote:

If you want it shorter you can have a private leining. Shul leining should include the masses regardless of their situation.

True. Everyone should be included. And a good baal koreh can wait and repeat But an hour is way too long. Especially after a fast.
Why does one need to blow a shofar for 2 minutes at every haman? And at one point the baal koreh had to repeat the SAME passuk a few times, because the men blew that shofar again at the same point and did not let him continue.
My point is that it’s not always the kids who make the noise or disruptions.
And next morning I went to a different shul which was a pleasure. Yes there were children. Yes there needed to be repetitions. But it was clear, loud, and about 35 minutes.

watergirl

Wed, Mar 08 2023, 10:21 am

amother Antiquewhite wrote:

I'm not sure where people got an hour from.

I agree that grown men should not be the ones causing the leining to take a long time. There's always that one guy with the bullhorn. One year a kid waiting until the Haman noise ended and THEN he made his noise - BH someone stopped him.

But this is also the gabbai's responsibility, or if not the gabbai, someone else in the shul. As part of the announcements before, (the "the BK will be making the brachos and having you all in mind, and make sure your cell phones are on silent") he should make it crystal clear to these men who they they are oh so funny not to do their shtik. If he persists or ignores, he needs to be kicked out, no different than a baby would be.

mommyhood

Wed, Mar 08 2023, 10:38 am

watergirl wrote:

45 minutes is not an hour.

And you can't have your cake and eat it too. We have to put our money where our mouth is (sorry for so many clichés here).

Part of being part of a kehilla means caring about the needs of others in addition to the needs and wants of ourselves.

Can't you imagine a women who can not have someone come to her home? She's a single mom and her house is embarrassing to her because she's putting up a good front but not coping at home... or her husband is drunk... so many reasons why she can't have someone in her house. Maybe she has a cat and the baal korah is allergic. Or a dog and he's scared. Or or or.

Still, a baal koreh needs to know when to STOP. It's mind boggling to me that they just keep on going when a baby is crying - then NO ONE is yotzei, everyone is mad, and everyone then has to go to another one. Just STOP LEINING, get the baby out, repeat the pasuk and continue.

My OP does not mean that every leining is 45 mins. It DOES mean that the baal koreh needs to know when to stop and when to repeat. If he just keeps going through the noise, it's on him just as it is on the mom who brought her kid.

My problem is with the bolded. If that was the way it worked I would be fine with it but from what we read here and from what I've seen in the leinings I go to, they don't get the baby out. For that, yes I do blame the mother.
I went to a leining this year that's known to be quick and quiet, no noise by haman and usually adults only. This year someone brought a baby and the BK stopped every time the baby made noise which was frequent and he also slowed down his pace so we could follow easily with the distraction. It added close to 10 minutes. Nothing terrible, I know I as yotzei and I'm guessing the mother had a good reason to be there, but it wasn't nothing and was hard for someone like me who has a hard time sitting still and gets easily distracted.

amother

Lotus

Wed, Mar 08 2023, 10:39 am

care4u wrote:

The problem is when you miss a couple of psukim and by the time you catch up, the Baal koreh is already even more psukim ahead. At a certain point you just can't keep up.
FWIW my father is a Baal koreh and for years I went to the shul where he leined. One year the exact scenario happened above-- it wasn't a baby, it was some kids playing in the hallway who got bored and ran around making enough noise that I missed several psukim and couldn't catch up. However, the noise didn't reach the men's section so my father didn't know to stop/reread that part--he felt terrible when he heard afterwards. It was very upsetting for those of us who needed to come back later. We all needed to go home and break our fast (my father did too, which is why he didn't reread for us right away) and then shlep out for another reading later when we all had prep we would otherwise have been doing. BTW, the kids who were disruptive were there with both parents in attendance. It wasn't a single mom or family where the father was working a night shift or otherwise busy. But they didn't want to be inconvenienced, I guess, either by taking turns or leaving with the kids once they started being noisy. So I guess they were yotzei but several of us were not.

At this point with so many similar anecdotes and posters asserting various opinions on this matter, I think this is a discussion for a halacha column maybe. What should a parent do about bringing kids? If there is only 1 reading, is it better to chance others being disturbed and not being able to be yotzei or for the parent to stay home and only one person misses it instead of several? Does a parent who refuses to remove their kids and leave get credit for the mitzvah, or gets an avairah for causing others to not be able to fulfill their obligation (or "steal" their time because they need to attend another reading)? I think a posek should clarify things for us all.

amother

Emerald

Wed, Mar 08 2023, 10:57 am

I do wonder if this is community dependent.

My Chassidish shuls are always filled with kids. There are often little disturbances here and there but everyone manages. Like @watergirl said, the bal Korah cooperates along with the disturbances and repeats or pauses when necessary.

It usually takes 45 minutes even with all that.

I suspect this issue of Megillah brings out the ocd in lots of people on here. I don’t see it in my chassidish shul though. People are calm and friendly and accepting. You’ll always have women offering to hold another woman’s baby, offer a corner of their chair to a child who gets restless standing… etc. I’m really proud of my community.

My mother is well past child raising age and she goes to Megillah early morning.

NotInNJMommy

Wed, Mar 08 2023, 11:00 am

watergirl wrote:

If a child was screaming and you feel you had to go to a second leining or whatever... blame the baal Koreh and gabbai.

I'm just confused honestly. So many threads after purim about megillah reading. The one from the mother who's husband was in the hospital working was especially heart breaking... so many women here and in the real world who have no choice for whatever reason and must bring their kids to shul in order to hear leining. And these threads coming up with ideas to help the moms... as if it's her fault.

I said in another thread - I was at a purim program on Monday night for a kiruv org. It was full families with their teens, kids, and even babies. And the leining was PERFECT. Why? The baal koreh and his gabbai were so skilled! If a word had to be repeated, it was. If a kid started to make noise, he stopped for a second to allow the parent to deal with the kid. It took maybe 45 minutes.

Purim morning, I was at a regular minyan for leining (about 8:45am). There were some kids, and at one point a little baby started screaming for his or her mother. Ok... so the baal koreh stopped for the two seconds or whatever, then repeated the missed words and went on. Also amazing.

If a shul is not going to organize a play room with a babysitter, and is not going to have any other way for people who have no other choice but to bring their kids in order to hear the megillah, or even for the people who lack the care or seichel to leave their kids elsewhere... it's up to the rabbi and the gabbai to be more selective when finding a baal koreh.

If you need to bring your kids, ask before Purim which places are accommodating and understanding. Consider going out of the box and finding an outreach program, those are especially wonderful.

Thank you! I've never had issues in so many bh readings I've gone to, including those with families. And the readings can be a normal length of time too---40-60 min. The one I attended this year at night with families was ~40 min. And the shul offers a later quiet reading to both accommodate parents switching off and folks who want a quicker/quieter reading. If one has a community/congregation with families and kids, then this needs to be part of the planning!

BH Yom Yom

Wed, Mar 08 2023, 11:01 am

amother Lotus wrote:

At this point with so many similar anecdotes and posters asserting various opinions on this matter, I think this is a discussion for a halacha column maybe. What should a parent do about bringing kids? If there is only 1 reading, is it better to chance others being disturbed and not being able to be yotzei or for the parent to stay home and only one person misses it instead of several? Does a parent who refuses to remove their kids and leave get credit for the mitzvah, or gets an avairah for causing others to not be able to fulfill their obligation (or "steal" their time because they need to attend another reading)? I think a posek should clarify things for us all.

This would be a great idea.

Also, shuls should definitely have babysitting or a (quiet) magic show or an Uncle Moishy video (depending on your circles) etc - something where kids can be dropped off and supervised. Work it into the shul budget to pay the babysitters and make it very worth their while (especially after fasting and also having to hear megillah).

I wonder if Chazal knew the amount of stress they were creating when they made it a rule of “hear every word or you’re not yotzei.” Purim would be so much less full of frustration and resentment, and more full of simcha shel mitzva, if there were less pressure on women to hear megillah 2x.

(And seriously, for all the men who like to drag out noise during Haman…which makes the BK have to repeat Haman’s name, so in any case we end up hearing his name twice as many times—when the whole point is to blot out his memory—leave the darn bullhorn at home. Rolling Eyes

)

salt

Thu, Mar 09 2023, 6:40 am

care4u wrote:

This.
Our gabbai announced this at the beginning of the megilla reading.

amother

Currant

Thu, Mar 09 2023, 10:46 am

amother Emerald wrote:

Agree with this. In my community the Baal korei’s wife posted on the community women’s chat that her husband would be leining in shul and then again in her house for women. This way the men were able to listen in shul and then watch the kids so the wives could hear the second time. That said, there were some kids in shul and we dealt with it just fine. One baby started screaming and the mother walked out, knowing that there was another leining 20 minutes later. There are always solutions if you want to find them.

amother

Bluebonnet

Thu, Mar 09 2023, 12:23 pm

watergirl wrote:

And what happens when there are certain kids who DON’T quiet down after a few seconds? Is that fair to the others who are fasting and can’t wait endless amounts of time to have the Baal Korei keep stopping?

amother

Bluebonnet

Thu, Mar 09 2023, 12:25 pm

watergirl wrote:

I’ve never encountered any baal Korei who didn’t stop and repeat the words when there was a disruption, whether it’s babies crying or noisemakers going too long.