Prayer and Blessings
What activities are permitted before morning prayers?
Question
What is a person supposed to do if he woke up early after sunrise but before the first minyan, or before his regular minyan, and now has free time? Is he prohibited from attending to his own needs, and is it not always appropriate for him to use the time for Torah study, since not everyone is capable of that and not all times are the same, etc.? Must he simply sit idle until the time for prayer arrives? He cannot browse the newspaper, tidy the house, cook, begin work, and so on. Thank you very much.
Answer
Shalom rav, Indeed, the halacha is that one may not attend to his own needs before prayer (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 89:3), and therefore it is forbidden to tidy the house, cook, or the like. However, a temporary, incidental activity is permitted (see Eshel Avraham of Butshatsh there). Therefore, it is permitted to put clothes, already sorted by type, into a washing machine, to take out the garbage (Halichot Shlomo, vol. 1, ch. 2, sec. 5), and it is also permitted to make his bed when no one else is making it for him (ibid., in Devar Halacha, letter 7).
Regarding reading a newspaper, one authority wrote that a brief glance is permitted (Devar Halacha there), while another wrote, for a different reason, that one should not read a newspaper before prayer, since the Shulchan Aruch wrote (89:2-3) that one should not stand in prayer out of anger but out of joy, and not out of judgment, so that his heart not be troubled by it. Similarly, in the news there are almost always reports that sadden and disturb a person, and for this reason one should avoid reading the news before prayer (Shevet HaKeheti, vol. 3, no. 40). The best thing is to use the time to recite chapters of Tehillim, which is something suitable for everyone and whose value is also great, as the Levush wrote (1:9) in the name of Rabbi Yosef Gikatilla zt"l, one of the great kabbalists in Spain in the 13th century, in Shaarei Orah (שער א), that through reciting Tehillim before prayer, one drives away the accusing forces so that the prayer afterward rises in peace without any accuser. And for that reason David called them psalms, because they cut a path for the prayer to ascend. See there.
With blessings, Hillel Meirs
