Jet lag and 9:00 minyanim

Flying east stinks. It really stinks with little kids.

Truth be told, I have nothing to complain about-- my kids were angels on the flight here. Once we arrived though it was a bit of a different story. I hate jet lag.

The first few nights my wife and I were up until 3:00 in the morning trying to convince our kids that they were tired (and yes, I hear all you parents who've passed this wonderful stage snickering in the background).

Hence the 9:00 minyanim part of the title. As an early riser, my experience davening in this type of quorum is limited.

It seems to me that there are two types of people who go to these minyanim on a consistent basis: A. People with nothing to do who enjoy davening, and B. People with nothing to do who want to get davening over with.

The best comparison I can make to the former is the proverbial Uncle Ned who surfs, plays video games with you, and is generally quite a hoot. Its always great spending an hour or two with Uncle Ned, but soon his antics become tiresome and you lose patience (I never had an Uncle Ned, which is too bad).

Sadly, this type of 9:00 minyan guy is probably the majority here in Israel, and trust me, there are a LOT of 9:00 minyan guys in the holy land. I was so far ahead that I found myself reading those corny intros to the artscroll siddur.

If you go to the shul down the block from me on a Friday night you will find a great deal of these holy yidden, bless their souls, inspiring me to name them "Kabbalas Shabbos Jews." KBJ are an interesting phenomenon-- I hope to write a more in depth post about them one of these days. (I don't mean to criticize (especially during Elul)(well, maybe I'm criticizing a little). The backgrounds of these Jews are often not your typical FFB, and the mere fact that they are somewhat in the fold is a neis.)