A big pet peeve of mine is when people start loading up their plates before kiddush* so that they can eat at the first possible opportunity. Their concern is NOT a hefsek between kiddush and eating, but "tzar baale chayim". It's one thing to take a cracker or two so you are "prepared" but I am talking about making full plates. (This bothers me almost as much as the wild packs of kids who start eating before kiddush pilfering everything like the plague of locusts despite coming to shul with overstuffed "pekelach" maleim kol tov......)

This has always greatly bothered me and is a big pet peeve of mine. It just seems so uncouth and disrespectful to me. (ignoring the fact that bread and mezonos is supposed to be covered during kiddush) You can't wait until AFTER kiddush to start loading up your plates??? You can't not eat for another few seconds??? Am I crazy? This just seems very rude to me...
The worst part is that it has become so common that if you DON'T do so you are at a distinct disadvantage of getting your prefered choice of food because little will be left by the time kiddush is made. Is it just me, or does fressing trump just about every other concern these days???


*Kal V'chomer the people who do so between washing and hamotize which is seemingly halachichally problematic, or what REALLY makes my blood boil when they start setting up for the kiddush during Musaf (or even earlier), disturbing the people who are trying to daven, taking away seforim and tables, or even making them move outright...

I agree. Fortunately, my current shul actively discourages this (one way is actually to kep everything covered during kiddush) so only an occasional uncouth guest plate loads.

This is actually a big problem at my local Chabad. There, not only does practically everyone take food before kiddush, but people start chowing down. Also, people who don't go to the services regularly show up to eat.

I asked the rov about this same exact inyan!

You takeh have to cover the cake and crackers, but that's it. There's no reason to wait for the rabbi to finish saying kiddush, drink, and then serve yourself.

My shul would never get everybody fed by the time the speakers start if we did that.

You forgot to mention that in addition to taking half the food, the children first put their fingers in their mouths, up their noses, down their pants, and then touch each and every cookie on the plates, before selecting six or seven of them.

The blatant, overwhelming and selfish greed irritates me. People don't load their plates up because they can't wait five seconds longer, they load their plates up because they want to get the best of everything before anyone else has a chance to partake. How often does it happen that after the first five or six people, there's no meat left in the chulent for anyone else? If you were foolish enough to stand at the back of the line, you're lucky if you have the option to choose from HALF of what was there before people dug in. I've seen people load their plates up with four or five pieces of kigel ON THE FIRST RUN, leaving the people at the back without. It's really, really disgusting. In a perfect world, there would be someone standing at every station, smacking the backs of hands with oversized wooden spoons when people start to overload their plate.

Shuli is right. The best food disappears fast.

My friend, for example, helps serve, so I hold a place for her, and get her the kugel she likes the best.

On the other hand, the best food disappears at home too - how many times did I prepare a platter of something, and when it got to me, only the burnt/raw, least appetizing portions were left ?

That's your fault! You should cook every portion to perfection, so there wouldn't be any burnt or raw pieces!

What happened to kiddush be'mokom seudah? We tend not to eat at kiddushes anyway, mostly for that reason but partly because we have a perfectly good meal waiting for us at home and why should we eat twice? I don't tend to eat at vorts or sholom zochors either. I go to wish mazeltov, chat to the baalei simcha and anyone else I meet, and that's it. Why does everyone need to eat so much?

I daven at a chabad house and our kiddush is more like a farbrengen; we share each other's simchas and we also have speakers.

I don't eat eveyrthing they put out, just the fish course; DH does the same at this shul's kiddush. We eat the fish in shul, come home and made Kiddush again, then serve the kids their fish course,and have something fleishey ourselves before we take our nap.

Otherwise, Lyric is right, it's a crazy amount of food to eat !

Not everyone makes a 7 course kiddush. Sometimes it is crackers maybe a shtickle fish and a few kugels (and of course pickles).
And some people have a long way to walk home and it really is "tzar baalei chayim" if they have to get home to even drink something. Or sometimes the davening ends earlier than you want to eat cholent (not in Chabad) and you'll be starving if you wait until you eat the seudah.....

I agree completely! In my shul, im one of the guys who helps set up the kiddush so that by the time i put everything on the table and want to sit down there's no space left. its not so bad now, but for a while people would dig in the cholent and only take the meat which really annoyed me. I made up for it though by drinking double mashka

Sorta like an appetizer.

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