Q&A: Is It Appropriate to Serve as Prayer Leader
Is It Appropriate to Serve as Prayer Leader
Question
I have recently been sinning, Heaven forbid, in the matter of wasting seed, and fairly consistently. I am trying very hard to deal with it in various ways and free myself from this terrible thing, but so far I have not succeeded. And even though I try to repent each time, it does not seem to me that this can really be called “abandoning the sin.” They often suggest in the synagogue that I serve as the prayer leader. I have a feeling that I am not worthy to represent the congregation because of these transgressions.
A. Is it indeed proper to refuse to be the prayer leader because of this?
B. If they urge me three times to go up, am I obligated to agree?
Answer
You can serve as the prayer leader. This is a sin that many people stumble over, and you are at least trying to cope with it.
There is no obligation to agree if you do not want to.
The enumerators of the commandments did not write that there is a prohibition against wasting seed,
so apparently this is not a Torah prohibition but only a rabbinic prohibition.
It is also not clear that when one does this for his own pleasure, and not for the purpose of destroying seed maliciously during the sexual act with his wife—which is the act of Er and Onan—there is any prohibition in it at all.