Many people seem to find davening the most opportune time to learn. Indeed, especially for Daf Yomi learners, learning during davening frees up other time. Moreover, there is a cachet of intellectualism in public learning during davening. Yet, one rarely finds a Rav or other talmid chacham learning during davening.

The learner-davener must share the blame with the shmoozer for the noise-level in a shul. The learner-davener is proclaiming that he is just as bored with the davening as the addicted conversationalist and is projecting a message that davening is not important. He contributes to the non-davening atmosphere in the shul.

Rav Eliezer Waldenberg (Tzitz Eliezer, Vol. IX,10) cites a commentator who homiletically explains the Gemora "pishpesh v'lo matza, yitleh b'bitul Torah," that one who endures physical suffering and cannot find a spiritual reason should blame it on the fact that during davening he had failed to abandon his Torah study... for the sake of davening.

It is reported that a highly regarded Chassidic Rebbe recently walked around his shul during a Friday night davening and closed the seforim of the learner-daveners.

The Mishna Berurah (124:14) writes that one should not learn during Chazoras Hashatz, even if one answers Omein at the end of every beracha, because it serves to demonstrate that it is acceptable not to pay attention to the davening. The less-learned will, therefore, talk and the learner-davener must shoulder the blame.

The Chasam Sofer, ZT"L, was once asked about the seemingly inordinate amount of time he spent on davening and whether it would not be better to spend that time in Torah study. He responded that the Gemora (Berachos 54b) teaches us that one who devotes extra time to davening is blessed with a long life, and he plans to make up any lost learning during that extra time.

The Chasam Sofer even utilized humor to stress the importance of concentrated davening. In the introduction to the Siddur Chasam Sofer, one of his students relates that the Chasam Sofer quoted the Midrash where Reb Yochanan exclaims that "he wishes that people would daven all day" (Tanchuma, Miketz). If so, when would people learn? The Chasam Sofer explained that the yeitzer hora wants a person to learn during davening. Thus, Reb Yochanan jestingly meant that a person who intends to daven all day would ultimately spend the entire day learning.

Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz, ZT"L, the late Rosh Hayeshiva in Mir-Jerusalem, in a recently published mussar shmuess, proclaims that someone who treats prayer lightly will not see success in his Torah studies. He based this on the Gemora at the end of Nidda (70b), where Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chanina asked for the formula to acquire wisdom and the Gemora states that he should increase the time spent on learning and decrease the time spent on business. To the empirical question that many who have followed this formula have not been successful, the Gemora answers that one must first pray to G-d, who is the source of all wisdom.

"Daf Yomi" - the institution, begun by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, ZT"L, of studying one page of the Talmud per day; at this rate, one can finish the entire Talmud in approximately seven years. BACK

"Chazoras HaShatz" - the repetition of the "Shemoneh Esray," "Eighteen Blessing" Prayer, by the Prayer Leader. The congregation responds with "Omein" to each blessing. BACK

"Mussar Shmuess" - a "lecture" or "class" on proper, ethical behavior. (This kind of "Shmu-ess'ing" is not the subject of this essay.) BACK

"Nidda" - one of the sixty-three volumes of the Gemara, the specific contents of which deal with marital laws, but which like all of the Talmud, ranges far and wide in the matters it brings under discussion. BACK