Davening Shacharit

For close to 6 months now, I've been leading Psukei D'Zimrah at my Shul's morning minyon. Last June, on my Grandmothers first Yahrzeit, I led the full Shacharit for the first time.

Since then I have not led the weekday Shacharit (although I have done Shabbat Shacharit a few times at our Haskama Minyon). This morning I got a surprise... I was asked to "start us off", which means do Psukei D'Zimrah, and have someone else take over for Shacharit. When we got to the normal take over spot, no one was coming up, and the Cantor asked if I wanted to keep on going. How can I turn that down?

So I kept going and did a fairly good job (much better than the first time). Still stumbled at a few places, but overall got through it with little problem.

I don't usually like to do Shacharit, since there are several places where there is a Kaddish that only the leader says. Since I'm not actually saying Kaddish (and G-d willing I won't have to for many years), I don't like to take that opportunity away for someone who is. I don't mind doing Psukei D'Zimrah, since there is no reader only Kaddish.

However, today I was glad to be asked. My brother is going for an MRI today to see how the mass on his brain is doing (an infection that seems to be responding to antibiotics - the mass was one of the factors that lead to my becoming more religious). My prayer this morning was dedicated to him in hopes of a positive result. One day I'll fill readers of this blog (if there are any) in on the details of "The Monster on Ian's Brain".