Q&A: Mincha After Ma'ariv
Mincha After Ma'ariv
Question
If a minyan finished an early Ma'ariv and then someone arrives and wants them to answer for him to a short repetition of Mincha—the first three blessings including Kedushah—are they allowed to answer him?
And on that same topic, if he joins them for the Amidah, does that count for him as praying Mincha with a minyan?
Answer
One should remember that fundamentally, one may act like this authority or like that authority, and there is an opinion that this applies even with two contradictory practices. When people answer for a short repetition, they are not joining the prayer of the person praying; they are only providing him with the framework of ten Jews from Israel (for the resting of the Divine Presence). Therefore I do not see any problem with this.
As for the second question, I did not understand it. Do you mean someone making up a missed Mincha? If he already prayed Ma'ariv and finished, then he has lost that opportunity. And if he prayed Mincha alone, then again he has fulfilled his obligation and has lost the minyan. (Though even here there is room for discussion in light of the neglected words of the Ra'avad regarding someone who betrothed a woman through an agent, that he should go back and betroth her himself, because it is better to perform a commandment personally than through an agent—and one could analyze this.)
Discussion on Answer
In the Mishnah Berurah, se'if katan 30, it says (based on the Magen Avraham, who proved it from Babylonian Talmud Avodah Zarah 4b and Tosafot beginning with "Since") that if someone prays Musaf at the time when the congregation is praying Shacharit, and he is with them in the synagogue, "it is called congregational prayer." Seemingly the same would apply to Mincha and Ma'ariv.
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=60386&st=&pgnum=251
By logic it seems that way indeed (since they are only turning his prayer into a framework of ten, as happens in spreading over the Shema), and as Ben Yehoyada cited, that is also the ruling in the Mishnah Berurah.
I think in the second question he meant to ask whether a person who wants to pray Mincha, and there is a minyan for early Ma'ariv, and he prays the Amidah with them (they are praying Ma'ariv and he is praying Mincha), whether that counts for him as prayer with a minyan.