Q. Hello Rav, One day a week I work until after sunset and will need to daven mincha during work during most of the winter. There is a mincha in an office building that is a 5 min jog away that davens at mincha gedola (1pm). It goes pretty fast, they don’t do a chazara (they do chetzi k’dushah), and always skip tachanun.
1. Would it be best to daven with this type of minyan or is it better to wait until mincha ketana (more ideal time) (eg. 4pm) and daven alone in my office (with tachanun)? If I do daven with them, is it appropriate to do tachanun myself afterwards once I get back to the office, or once the minyan skips it I’ve lost the chance?
2. To add an extra twist to the above scenario…..to get to the 1pm minyan, I will need to leave my office 5 min before my lunch break. Practically this does not cause a loss to anyone and its extremely unlikely that my boss would even know. However, as an employee, my boss would probably not be thrilled if they found out, and if my boss was on site, I would not leave early. Given this, is it still appropriate to daven mincha with the minyan, or better to wait until I have a “coffee break) in the afternoon to daven at mincha ketana alone?
thanks so much.
A. Horav Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a opinion is that you have to ask permission from your boss to leave a few minutes earlier. If it is not granted, you must daven later without a minyan. If it is given, it is better then to daven with a minyan and recite tachanun afterwards on your own.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit’a