I cannot speak for everyone but there are many daily and weekly prayers I do not say, mostly due to laziness, lack of attention span or just the general I want to get done with this because I got to get out of here. Whatever it may be I know I am not alone, I know that many of the prayers in davening that I do skip, are skipped by others for similar reasons, lengths being the chief among them.
Does anyone actually say Bimay Madlikin, this is what I wonder because I use this as my mid davening bathroom break and the time when I can strategically place my looks into the women’s section without appearing to be a sex offender. The Aramaic is just too much and have you ever seen how long the damned thing is? This is one of the many situations where I long to daven nusach sphard, Kigavne is way shorter.
Another shabbos biggie which most shuls don’t even say during shul because its way to long is V’yeetane Licha. Everyone is already grabbing their car keys from behind shtenders and making their way for the door in the middle of V’yehi Noam, you expect them to stay for the longest prayer in the whole shabbos davening. Well in Ohev Shalom on 84th street they say this prayer and my father was able to finish it before I was done with Yihi Noam.
Uz Yusheer is one of those easy weekday prayers that I should say, but I don’t. You want to know why I don’t? No its not because I am lazy and just want to bust out shema and be done with it. No, that is reserved for other things like all those Brachos after the initial day school bracha response section. If not for the way they wrote Uz Yusheer in the siddurim, like they write in the torah, I would say it.
Like Uz Yusheer being written in a weird way convinces me not to say it, the way other things are written also deter me from saying them. I try to say Hodu on a “depending if I am in shul basis” but at home I rarely say it because some siddurs fail to break it up. Hodu is very foreboding even though the language is easy because not everyone can be like Shiloh and Artscroll siddurs, with the whole breaking it up after certain paragraphs. The last thing I want to see in a siddur, is a 3 page long unbroken Kerouac-esque style prayer. It just scares the heck out of me. At least when the paragraphs are broken, you can jump up and do the “oh their up to Boroch Hu, now I have an excuse to skip half of shachris.
Before I go any further with this post I should just give you all my prayer breakdown, so you don’t think I am some sort of heretic. Unlike many folks I know who simply don their straps say shema and take them off I am pretty lengthy in my abridged davening. No, I don’t say the whole thing but I do get the birchas hatorah as well as boruch sheomar squared away. Yihi chivod, ashrei random whatever I feel like Hallelukas, yishtabach all the way through shmona esray and then an ashrei as I am taking the good old tefilin off. If I am in shul I say more- as mentioned above there are some prayers that always get skipped.
Another of these prayers is the Wednesday Yom. Have you ever seen how long it is. I am sure many of you would agree. The Wednesday Yom just isn’t like Friday, if I would say it I would finish after the little earning session while everyone takes off their talis and tefilin.
While we are on prayers I never say, what about Monday and Thursday Tachnun, Tachnun is one of those things I always just did part of. In high school I would put my head down and wake up around Aleinu when the Rabbis walked around waking all the other “using prayers for sleep” people. I personally like to do the regular tachnun and throw in some nusach sphard Viduy in with the mix. I hate waiting till Roch Hashanah time to bust out Viduy.
I mentioned above the “day school bracha response section” that happens to be the one place that Conservative, Renewal and whatever flavor of the month Judaism is circulating yuppie communities, change in the siddurim. Being born as a Jew or a man or according to his will is just too politically incorrect for these people. This is also happens to be the most important section of davening for me, without these birchas hatorah abnd response blessings I would never get my 100 brachos in nor would I be able to learn torah. That said- you folks know all that stuff after Hanosane Layev Koach? Thought so, I never say that stuff, I skip all the Kitores, weird shortened Shema stuff and go right to Boruch Sheomar.
What about Yikum Porkun, man I can never figure out which one they are saying. First of all its in Aramaic, a great deterrence if I ever knew one, I was never that great at learning Gemara anyway. Then if you look in the artscroll siddur, there are a bunch of them. To top it off they always say it real fast to give the Rabbis more time to speak and by the time you figure out which one to say, its over with.
How many of you repeat Shmona Esray when you miss Yale Viyavo? I have repeated, but it sucks, and there is never kavanah involved, its always a race to kedusha which I always loose, and debate whether I really have to say the stuff after Sim Shalom or is kedusha more important. Come to think of it how many times do I bust out a self inflicted posek on which prayer is more important based on the fact I would rather be bouncing on two toes then stuck in the middle of lengthy Nishmas or something.