– Q. Kvod Horav Shlit”a. It happens because of my medical situation that I come late to shul. Sometimes in the past I have had to listen to the shofar blowing at the end of davening during Elul, while I’m still saying the amidah Do I have to stop davening to listen to the blowing? What if the blower is not that good and it takes him sometimes a while, till he gets it right?

A. Nitei Gavriel (Rosh Hashana 4: 6) rules that one does not have to stop his amida prayer to listen to the blowing of the shofar during Elul. He explains that even during Rosh Hashana itself, the opinion of the Magen Avrohom (O.H. 592) is that it is not proper to blow the shofar during the quiet tefila of amida, not to disturb the people davening. So much more in our case when those shofar voices are only a tradition and not obligatory.

Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by, Horav Yaakov Hirschman, Horav Dovid Pam, Horav Aharon
Miller, Horav Chanoch Ehrentreu and Horav Kalman Ochs Shlit’a