Omer Learning 2019: Day 39 | Siddur Q & A: If the Barchu prayer in the mo…

Today is 39 days, which is 5 weeks and 4 days of the Omer

Instructions for counting the omer are found on our Omer Overview Page. You can find the specific blessing for today at chabad.org.

We’re dedicating new Siddurim on the first day of Shavuot. In honor of this wonderful occasion, we’re using the counting of the Omer to learn about the siddur.

Enjoy today’s siddur related question and answer, which was provided by Eric A..

If the Barchu prayer in the morning service is an invitation to pray as a community, why isn’t it the first prayer we say?

When we exercise or play a game, we need to warm up first. So too when we pray, we need a warm up, to help us get in the right frame of mind. Birchot Hashachar let’s us rub the sleep from our eyes and start the day, then Pesukei D’Zimrah helps us focus and sets the tone for what is to come. Now that we are ready, we join together as a community with the Barchu.

It is said that people prayed these opening stages alone, at home and then when to shul. I suspect this tradition did not actually exist, however. I have been blessed with the opportunity to pray with many congregations around the world. Not one had a minyan at the published starting time, and in all of them, people straggled in over the first hour of the Shabbat Shacharit service. In fact, our tradition tells us that at the foot of Mt. Sinai, the Jews overslept, and Ha’shem needed a shofar blast to get us up and to shul. Since we need to hear the Barchu, and we need a minyan to respond to it, it makes sense, that we warm-up in the shul.

Taking this logic to the ultimate extreme, in Sephardic communities, the Barchu is said twice. First, as the Ashkenazim do, it is said before the Shema. Then it is repeated at the very end of the service, right before Aleinu. That way no mater how late you are, you will still have a change to join in the call to prayer.

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