Tuesday, August 09, 2005

ערב ט' באב שחל בשבת when to take off your shoes?

The Shulchan Aruch and Rama are pretty clear, after Borchu you take your shoes off. This is the minhag that I remember from years past as well.

However, recently a new minhag which makes a lot of sense has evolved. People go home after mincha, eat, and then at Tzeis Hakochavim say boruch hamavdil, take off their shoes, change their clothes and then go to shul to daven maariv. This seems to work better then the old minhag of taking off your shoes in shul. The question is, why didn't the Rama advocate this minhag? One answer is that in the days of the Rishonim and Acharonim it was hard to get people to come out to shul at night and therefore if people had gone home they wouldn't return for maariv.

Where I daven, the Rabbi announced that everyone should do what I outlined above (take your shoes off at home etc.)

I am interested to hear what the readers will be doing.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You where late today ;-)
We are taking off our shoes after Borchu .

bluke said...

I didn't understand your last comment about my being late.

Anonymous said...

I would say that the advice the Rama gives is a practical one. They didn't have a second pair of shoes with no leather to put on, so what was the point of going home? Also, in those times, with no streetlights, it wasn't so easy to just go out at night.

Anonymous said...

It was a provocation. Look at your post time.

bluke said...

2:00PM? I still don't get it.

Anonymous said...

Our Minyan is following the newer custom

tmeishar: said...

I was JUST reading about this on VBM.
Look at this article, you'll find an in-depth analysis of the matter under the title: "Removing Shoes."

Menachem Butler said...

Tonight, I was actually looking at the teshuva of Maran Ovadiah Yosef, shlita, in Yechave Da'at, vol. 5, #38!!

Anonymous said...

I heard from my father, who grew up in a shtetl (in what is now Belarus) before WWI, that after davening Maariv everyone put their leather shoes (boots) back on to walk home. One couldn't walk in the unpaved streets without shoes. When they got home they took off the shoes. The same procedure was followed for Shacharis and Mincha.
Incidentally, on YK they also wore leather shoes in the street. Of course, many people stayed in Shul from before Kol Nidrei until after Maariv motzoei YK, so they didn't wear leather shoes on YK at all.

Anonymous said...

We wait until Tzeis, say Baruch HaMavdil, change shoes (but *not* clothes) and go to shul. Some say Borei Morei HaEish at home as well.