76° Blue Skies and The Happy Minyan

Please Leave The Freeze!

Aish LA pleaded with me to leave the 20° NY weather and fly out to LA to play for a group of college students who were on a 10 day trip studying Torah and touring. I reached deep into my altruism closet and yanked out just enough strength to book a ticket and put up with airport security. Well maybe “plead” is a little bit of a stretch – I was saying yes by the time they finished “Hello!”

Baruch HaShem the trip went very well with several highlights besides for the weather. One of those was the opportunity to daven at The Happy Minyan which is a “Shlomo Minyan” of the highest caliber where my good friend and colleague Yehudah Solomon is the Chazan. If you’ve experienced various Shlomo minyanim you’ll know that they are all great but some are just even greater and this minyan is one of the latter. “Heartzig” “temmimusdik” and “emmesdik” are the words that come to mind. They are located in a Karate School which works out perfectly because of the wood floors and wide open space – they have put together white tapestries that presumably cover the mirrors in front of the room and form the mechitzah and this adds to the feeling of Kavod Shabbos in the room.

I bless The Happy Minyan and all her mispallelim for a long and healthy life filled with many occasions of simcha… and most importantly I bless you to have the wherewithal to eventually build a building of your own. But when that happens, please please make sure to wrap the pillars in your new Shul with padding as they are in the Karate School – because as I was dancing around the room this past Shabbos I couldn’t help but think how appropriate that was – shouldn’t every Shul have padding around their pillars so that when tha davening and dancing gets really intense no one should get hurt!?