Lakewood, NJ (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) This past Shabbos morning, hundreds of mispallelim at Beth Medrash Govoha’s Bendheim “Yoshon” building on 7th Street in Lakewood were ordered by police to evacuate. A man in the area had made specific threats against the yeshiva.

In the Yoshon Bais Medrash, the order came right in the middle of Mussaf Shemoneh Esrei. The tzibbur left the building and met up again across the street at Bais Yitzchok, where they finished davening. In the Mizrach Bais Medrash, where Mussaf had not yet started, the kehilla split up to nearby places.

A K-9 sweep was done with the help of four agencies — Lakewood Police, the Ocean and Monmouth County Sheriffs’ Offices, and Jackson Township Police. In the end, the threats were determined to be not credible.

The suspect was taken into custody, and charges are pending.

What follows is not the news story but the halachic question the news story raises. When a tzibbur is ordered to evacuate mid-Shemoneh Esrei because of a threat that turns out to be not credible — where, exactly, does each person pick up?

The Source: Snake and Scorpion

The first Mishna of the fifth perek of Maseches Brachos (30b) gives a rule. If a snake wraps itself around a person’s ankle during Shemoneh Esrei, the person may not make a hefsek. The Gemara (Brachos 33a) draws a contrast: if a scorpion is coming close, one does interrupt.
Why does this matter in practice? Someone who interrupts when he should not have — the snake case — must restart Shemoneh Esrei from the very beginning. Someone who interrupts when he was supposed to — the scorpion case — picks up where he left off.
The Rambam (Peirush HaMishnayos) explains the reason behind the rule. Most of the time, a snake that wraps around an ankle does not actually bite. That fact is enough to take the case out of the category of pikuach nefesh.
The Powerful Question
The Gemara in Yuma (84b) teaches a basic rule: delo halchu b’pikuach nefesh achar harov. In matters of life and death, halacha does not follow the majority. So how can the Mishna use a majority argument in the snake case? And what really makes the snake different from the scorpion?
The Poskim give at least seven answers. Each one has direct meaning for what happened at BMG.
Seven Approaches
1. Rav Elchonon Wasserman zt”l (Kovetz Shiurim, Pesachim #32) explains that someone in the middle of Shemoneh Esrei is a shliach mitzvah. The Gemara in Pesachim (8a) teaches that shluchei mitzvah einam nizokin — those doing a mitzvah are not harmed. But there is a catch: this protection does not apply to common dangers. A scorpion is likely to sting, so the protection does not hold. A snake is unlikely to bite, so the protection holds. Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach zt”l, quoted in Shemiras Shabbos K’Hilchasa (chapter 25, footnote 15), disagrees with how Rav Elchonon defines shluchei mitzvah.
Applied to the Yoshon case: the question is whether the kind of threat that caused the evacuation is the type that usually turns out to be real. If specific verbal threats against a Jewish institution after October 7 do, on average, lead to actual danger, the evacuation was correct, and the mispallelim pick up where they left off. If most such threats turn out to be fake — like this one did — then by Rav Elchonon’s logic, those who interrupted may have done so for nothing and would need to restart Shemoneh Esrei from the beginning. A police command, however, may be considered halachically required, and that may change the picture.
2. Rav Tzvi Elimelech Spira of Dinov zt”l (1783–1841), the Bnei Yissaschar and nephew of the Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk, gives a very different answer in his sefer Vehaya Bracha. The halacha about snakes is one of a kind. There is a special pasuk in Mishlei (16:7): birtzos Hashem darchei ish, gam oyvav yashlim ito — when Hashem is pleased with a person’s ways, even his enemies make peace with him. The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 54:1) explains that the “enemy” in that pasuk is the snake. The rule about not interrupting Shemoneh Esrei for a snake comes from this pasuk — and applies to nothing else.
Applied to the Yoshon case: a real threat against a building has nothing to do with the pasuk in Mishlei about snakes. The hefsek for evacuation was justified on its own, and the mispallelim pick up where they stopped.
3. The Klausenberger Rebbe zt”l (Divrei Yatziv, Orach Chaim Siman 61) points to a drasha in Yuma (19b) about Krias Shema: vedibarta bam — “in them” you may speak, and not in Tefillah. From here, the rules of hefsek in Tefillah are uniquely strict, and the regular logic of rov simply does not work there.
Applied to the Yoshon case: this approach matters in a special way for the Mizrach Bais Medrash situation, where some people may have already started Pesukei D’Zimra or earlier parts. It also matters for any similar case with Krias Megillah or other devarim sheb’kedusha. The special strictness in Shemoneh Esrei may not apply elsewhere — meaning the bar for allowing a hefsek in those other cases is lower, and picking up where one left off is easier to defend.
4. Rav Avrohom Stern zt”l, in Kisvei Aish (Volume V, Siman 6), learns from the Bartenura that the snake case is built on a double majority. Most snakes do not bite, and most snakebites are not deadly. The combined low chance takes the case out of pikuach nefesh entirely.
Applied to the Yoshon case: there is no similar double majority protecting mispallelim from a specific threat made against the building they are sitting in, with police on scene taking it seriously enough to bring in a K-9 unit. The basic danger is real, even if the specific threat turns out not to be. The hefsek is justified, and the tzibbur picks up where they left off.
5. Rav Avrohom Dirnfeld zt”l, Rav and Rosh Mesivta of Puppa, in his Bais Yosef on Brachos, quotes the Chasam Sofer (YD #245) for the rule that when the small chance of danger is not visibly there, halacha does follow the rov.
Applied to the Yoshon case: the mispallelim did not see the threat. They were told by police that one existed. By the Chasam Sofer’s logic, this case may be governed by rov, and the question becomes a question of numbers. In all the “specific threats called in against Jewish institutions in the United States,” what percentage turn out to be real? If most do not, then by this approach, the hefsek would have been wrong after the fact, and Shemoneh Esrei would have to be restarted.
This is maybe the most sobering of the seven views — and the one that leans hardest on data the average mispallel does not have.
6. The Rashash holds that there are cases where halacha does follow rov even in pikuach nefesh (see Shulchan Aruch OC 618:3). In this view, the difference between snake and scorpion is not all-or-nothing but a question of probability — a question of how high the danger needs to be before rov gets pushed aside.
Applied to the Yoshon case: a posek would have to look at the actual chance of harm given the specific threat. Given the post-10/7 environment, the seriousness with which four agencies treated the call, and the use of a K-9 unit, the bar was almost certainly met. Hefsek was justified; pick up where you left off.
7. The Magadim Yekarim of Rabbi Shlomo Menachem Schwartz looks at this through the lens of Chillul Hashem. To leave Shemoneh Esrei for a far-off, unlikely danger creates a Chillul Hashem; therefore, halacha does not allow it.
Applied to the Yoshon case: the calculation goes the other way. Showing that Torah values life over ritual — that a thousand mispallelim will leave a bais medrash mid-Mussaf when police identify a threat — is not Chillul Hashem. It is Kiddush Hashem. The hefsek is appropriate, and the tzibbur picks up where they left off.
What Counts as a Hefsek?
Before figuring out where to pick up, there is an earlier question: was leaving the building actually a hefsek?
The Talmidei Rabbeinu Yonah rule that a hefsek in Shemoneh Esrei happens only through speech, not through walking. The Rema (OC 104:3) holds this way. The Taz and the Vilna Gaon disagree — they hold that walking is also a hefsek. The Vilna Gaon quotes the Rosh (Siman 3) that the whole snake discussion must be talking about walking, since speech alone would do nothing against a snake.
For someone who was evacuated silently from the Yoshon building — walking quickly to the exit without speaking — the Rema’s view gives strong grounds to say that no hefsek happened at all, and Shemoneh Esrei could simply be finished in the new place, picking up exactly where it stopped.
The Rivevos Ephraim on Alarms
Rav Ephraim Greenblatt zt”l (Rivevos Ephraim Vol. 8 #311) ruled directly on a similar case: a fire alarm during Shemoneh Esrei. His ruling is clear — one must leave. He only adds that a history of false alarms might change the picture. Kal v’chomer, he writes, when a missile siren goes off in Eretz Yisroel, one must leave at once.
A police evacuation order in response to specific threats against a named yeshiva is at least as serious as a fire alarm, and probably more so — there is a human authority on the scene actively assessing the risk and giving the order.
Practical Conclusion
Putting it all together, the main pesak across almost all the approaches above — and clearly according to the Bnei Yissaschar, Rav Avrohom Stern, the Rashash, the Magadim Yekarim’s Kiddush Hashem framing, and the Rivevos Ephraim’s kal v’chomer — is that the mispallelim ordered out of the Yoshon building did exactly what halacha demanded. The hefsek was justified. They pick up Shemoneh Esrei from where they left off.
Even according to the framings of Rav Elchonon and the Chasam Sofer, where the analysis depends more on background statistics, the nature of post-October 7 threats against Jewish institutions, the use of multiple agencies, and the K-9 sweep all weigh on the side of treating this as a real pikuach nefesh assessment by the proper authorities — to which the only halachic response is to listen.A sheilas chacham should be addressed to one’s own posek for any specific application.
The author can be reached at [email protected]