QUESTION

Maryland, USA

We have two outside minyanim starting at 7:30 Yom Kippur morning. I’m worried about having a minyan at both right away. The two tent areas are only about 50 feet apart. If people stand in the middle, can they count for both minyanim?

ANSWER

What an interesting question. I don’t know if it’s ever been dealt with. Why not just count it as one minyan and have one Shaliach Tzibur until more arrive? (Which is probably why it’s never been dealt with before.)

FOLLOW-UP QUESTION

Because we have two different ba’alei shacharit who worked hard and then one would be cut out of the rest of davening. Unless they can daven as one minyan for Birkat Keriat Shema, Shema and the Amidah and then split into two for Chazarat HaShatz? We also would have to stand because of seats needing to be cleaned.

ANSWER

It’s fine to split for Chazarat HaShatz based on the Shulchan Arukh OC 69:1,

.ואם אינם נמצאים אפילו בשביל אחד שלא שמע אומרים ואפילו מי ששמע יכול לפרוס על שמע ולעבור לפני התיבה בשביל אותו שלא שמע

This halakha shows that you can do Chazarat HaShatz for the sake of one person, so certainly you can break up into two and each minyan should now have new people that you can do חזרת השץ for. Even without that, no one present has yet heard Chazarat HaShatz.

Or said another way – you don’t need to limit חזרת השץ to a case where they all davened together.

.כך נראה לי