More or less my default schedule for when I am in my office is to daven Mincha at the Washington DC office of the Agudah and Maariv in the Yeshiva at 10 pm after the daf. The two venues are a study in contrasts. The Agudah minyan is a reasonable but “quickie” “heicha kedusha” minyan starting promptly at 1:45 pm and finishing by 1:55; 2 pm the latest. The Yeshiva’s Maariv minyan, on the other hand, starts at 10 pm (Jewish Standard time,) is a slow minyan and can take up to twenty minutes to finish. I’ve known about the Agudah minyan for several years and I am embarrassed to say that I never even tried to attend until my aveilus began a few weeks ago. Interestingly I am the only aveil in the minyan. Everyone else just comes to daven with a minyan! In truth, I see now that as a general rule there is no excuse for all the years of my not attending since it really is fairly easy to schedule around it. Shame on me! All these years I would tell myself that I could not possibly break away mid day to go daven with a minyan. Now that I have to I see that I easily could have. All it takes is a genuine commitment and a little more care in scheduling. As I said shame on me!

Last night I made my belated (two days late) siyum for the Shloshim. I decided to make it on Meseches Rosh Hashanah which the daf finished some ten days ago. Though many people volunteered to learn all mishnayos by the end of Shloshim I had no practical way to be sure that all commitments were able to be kept. Nonetheless I am aware of many who not only learned a meseches of mishnayos but made sure to finish their undertaking by the Shloshim. The siyum started at 10:20 pm and was attended by at least 20 people. Once again I was taken by the outpouring of support.

More “kaddish stress” this afternoon. I have to go to Columbus in a couple of weeks for a four hour meeting. Given the time of the meetings and the flight schedule it will be a challenge to make this a one day or even a two day trip. I hope I can make this all come together in no more than two days.