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Drinking coffee in middle of shachris. Selling shiur downloads

Question:

  1. I have seen people in Shul drinking coffee during the entire shachris. Is this okay? I assume they made a brocha before and have no health issues.
  2.  Also, I see some rabbis sell digital downloads of lectures given many years ago in public. I learned that one is supposed to teach Torah for free, or for the time “Schar Battala”. Should these public lectures recorded from 10-15 years be free if the Rabbi already review his schar battala?

Answer:

1. Technically it might not be forbidden to drink during davening, however if a person is not weak or sick and doesn’t need to drink it is quite disrespectful to be sipping coffee while davening shacharis. When we are davening we, lowely mortals are praising Hashem and beseeching Him to give us life health a livelihodd, take us out of exile etc. and asking for all of our needs. Just picture a servant who gets an appointment to talk to the king, and he comes into the throne room with a cup of coffee in his hand, to sip while he talks to the king and asks makes requests from Him!

2. The idea fo schar battala is that the rabbi is not getting a job or working, in order to teach torah. However he does need to have his monetary needs taken care of, therefore he is allowed to charge for his services. Therefore it is permitted for him to take money for his lectures so that he will now have a source of livelihood.

Best wishes

 

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