Q) If we are davening Shacharis and need to wait for a latecomer to catch up – at which stage of birkas kriyas shema should we pause in order to be able to begin the Amidah with a minyan?
(I.e. should we wait before “tzur yisroel” or after Shema, or at another point of the tefillo?)
A) The Mishna Berura in Siman 112[1] discusses a situation in which an individual is davening with a tzibur who are saying Piyutim, and the individual is worried that saying the Piyutim may cause him to miss saying Kriyas Shema before sof z’man kriyas shema. The Mishna Berura advises the individual to begin to daven himself birchos kriyas shema and Shema, and to wait for the tzibbur at “Hashem E-lokeichem Emess”.
The Mishna Berura in Sha’ar Hatziyon[2] explains that although the Tur advises in a similar situation that one pause and wait for the tzibur at “v’oneh le’umo yisroel” – it is in fact preferable to pause at “Hashem E-lokeichem Emess” because a person may end up waiting the amount of time in which one would be able to recite the entire brocho; and some Poskim maintain that if one paused during a brocho for this amount of time – he needs to begin the brocho again. Therefore, it is preferable to pause at “Hashem E-lokeichem Emess” when waiting during birchos kriyas shema (because this is not in the middle of a brocho).
[The Ishei Yisroel raises the question that technically the word “emess” is the beginning of the brocho following kriyas shema (“emess v’yatziv” or “emess v’emunoh”) and therefore were one to pause at this juncture, this too should constitute a hefsek during a brocho – and require returning to the beginning of the brocho again.
[1] ס”ק ד’
[2] ס”ק ג’