How Far To Drive For a Minyan

Answer by Rabbi Chaim Hillel Raskin, Moreh Hora’ah at Beis Horaa of Rechovot, Israel:

Davening with a minyan is a great mitzva midrabanan. Chazal highly extol the power of davening done together with a minyan where his tefilla is more easily accepted by Hashem, and that he “redeems me and my children from among the nations”(1).

For this reason, one must therefore travel up to four “mil” to daven with a minyan if it’s along the way that he’s traveling, and up to one “mil”if it’s out of his way (2).

How long is a “mil”? The actual length of a mil is .6 of a mile (3150 feet / 960 meters). However, in certain areas of halacha (e.g. baking matzah) a mil is used to describe the amount of time it takes to walk a mil (which poskim argue if it is 18 minutes, 22.5 minutes, or 24 minutes, which the Alter Rebbe accepts as the primary opinion (3).

What if a person is traveling by car? Is he obligated to travel 6/10ths of a mile or must he drive for a full 24 minutes?

Some contemporary poskim hold that Chazal obligated a person to trouble himself for a minyan for a certain amount of time regardless of how he travels (4).

However, others argue that we cannot build a stringency based on a timeframe being that the original measure is set by distance. Furthermore, during the days of the Mishna people also used other modes of travel (donkey, horse and wagon) and yet Chazal set it at a mil without distinction (5). This seems to be the position of the Alter Rebbe (6).

While some poskim suggest that one who is at home and not traveling should be obligated to travel more than one mil (which was said for traveling in the opposite direction) (7), the Alter Rebbe writes that one need not travel more than a mil (8).

Sources:
1. ברכות ז ע”ב ואילך. וראה רמב”ם הל’ תפילה פ”ח ה”א.
2. פסחים מו ע”א, שוע”ר סי’ צ’ סי”ז.
3. שוע”ר או”ח סי’ תנ”ט ס”י.
4. התפילה בציבור פ”א סי”ז, אבני ישפה פ”ו ס”ו ע”פ משנ”ב סי’ קס”ג באה”ל ד”ה ברחוק.
5. שו”ת שבט הלוי ח”ח סי”ט. וראה אליה רבא או”ח סי’ צ”ב סק”ה בשם תשובת ב”י סי’ ל”ה שגם ברוכב הולכים לפי שיעור מהלך ברגליו.
6. כן דייק הר”י שי’ הלפרין ממה שבשוע”ר בהלכות נט”י אינו כותב המרחק בזמן כמ”ש המשנ”ב.
7. ראה אג”מ ח”ב סי’ כ”ז.
8. סי’ צ’ סי”ז.

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