Shul Announcements: Shelach

by Rivka Schwartz

Our rabbi is a superhero. We want to acknowledge his ability to ensure our prayers are done right. Even on his way out of shul, to save Kiddish Levana (holiness over the moon), the rabbi caught the Chazin doing a long Kaddish. He jumped in, yelled, “vYhi Noam” and then he was gone. Like Superman and Mighty Mouse. Our rabbi swoops in for H’. 
The moon was not saved that night by our rabbi. But he did save our congregation a full Kaddish prayer.
 
We ask people say Kaddish faster. People feel like there’s a funeral when our Gabai leads Kaddish. Losing a loved one is hard enough.
 
Chesed Opportunities: Child counseling. The rabbi has decided the children in our shul are messed up and need help. Something is wrong when kids are rolling on the floor in front of the Bima. If anybody can help make these kids normal, your Chesed is needed.

Contemporary Halacha Classes: What Our Shul Looks Like When the Rabbi Is Not Around to Catch Our Mistakes And How Other Religions Began. How to Make Shul More Painful Than It Already Is with Our Gabai and His Kaddish- A Study. The Psychology Behind Children in Our Shul and Circus Animals.
 
Rivka’s Community Rundown
He’s a superhero. The rabbi catches things you do wrong, he notes them, then he’s gone. Middle of conversation, rabbi swooped in, said, “Lashon Hara” and he was gone. He sees the Aveira, notes it and he's gone. He truly has a way of letting you know you're a disgusting person who sins. He's like a Mitzvah Man that gives you no hope.

Our shul, we need the rabbi. We're lost without him. If the rabbi was gone for more than a week, I don’t think we’d be Jewish. Last Friday night we ended up doing Nusach Sefarad. He was gone for one Minyin. He missed one service, Maariv, and we already changed our Davening traditions. Like that, our shul changed its tradition. The Gabai didn’t even notice. The guy leading the services could’ve done some mosque tunes, our congregants would’ve gone along with it. They’re oblivious.
Without our rabbi we would be saying Kaddish even slower. We would be making the Kiddish Brachas slouching. Not sitting or standing. We would just be slouching. Nobody would know if our shul tradition is to sit or stand for the blessing. So, we would do what everybody does in our shul. We would slouch. Our whole congregation slouches. Look around and you will see a lot of slouchers. Somebody has to come in and work on prayer posture with us.

Our rabbi saves us. He could've saved the moon. I believe it. But the clouds got in the way and we didn't say Kiddish Levana on Saturday night. Clouds are his one kryptonite. 
 
Our Gabai is very good at bringing a funeral feeling to everything we do at shul.
He thought he was helping with the Mourner's Kaddish, slowing it down. He just throws everybody off with his slow Kaddish speed. And it got slower this week. We had to say "Amen" five times to each part of Kaddish. One guy finished slow, another one slower. Then a slower one for the women's side. Then another guy caught that and slowed it down. Somehow, the Gabai still hadn't finished. Then, finally, the Gabai finished. Another "Amen" and an extra fifteen minutes in shul.
The Gabai thinks he’s helping people who don’t know how to say the Mourner's Kaddish. How many times do you have to say Kaddish over the course of the year, before the Gabai believes you know how to do it?! Like after six months of saying it seven times a day they haven’t figured it out it yet.
Our Gabai doesn’t believe people can learn. Either that, or he likes to make things painful. He believes that by doing it really slow, he’s helping people feel their mourning more intensely, allowing them to push their pain onto the whole congregation too. Bringing a feeling of communal mourning, every time he says Kaddish.
Somebody has to talk to the Gabai. It’s getting very annoying. And I don’t have an extra hour to stick around shul for Kaddish. I know that sounds bad, but Davening has went from two and a half hours to three and a half hours now.

Kids dancing on the Bima in middle of Musaf. Is that normal? I'm beginning to think it is. Please let me know if kids dancing on the stage in the middle of the repetition of the Silent Prayer is normal. And how the Silent Prayer is repeated out loud confuses me.
All the kids in our shul are on the spectrum. Rolling around on the floor in the middle of the ark being open. Something is wrong. All kids are on the spectrum. I'm convinced.
The kids are then playing on the stairs in front of the Aron, in front of the whole congregation. We all see them. And they don't notice. We don't even need a one-way window. They're oblivious. And we're all watching. You can't not watch. They're crazy.
Going to Minyin at our shul is a psychological study. First, we have the control group of the kids. And then you end up studying the Kaddish speed. And the data shows our whole congregation is on the spectrum.
And they're taking up the stairs. Do the parents not realize they're in shul? They don't. The kid leading Anim Zmirot can’t get down, because all the other kids are chilling on the stairs and rolling around. They’re like smokers taking up the stairs with their little dolls, like Peppa Pig. How the parents think bringing Peppa Pig Muddy Puddles Party to shul is a good idea. Something else that baffles the mind.
 
The Mitzkin service now hosts the youth. The rabbi was so happy to get rid of the youth. Nobody can Daven at the Mitzkin house breakaway. It’s a ruckus. They have kids there, playing Peppa Pig.
It took a day. Everybody seems to be coming back to shul. The Mitzkins realized that people are annoying. They thought they were friends with the other members. Then the other members started going to their house for Minyin and turned into congregants. Now the Mitzkins hate them all. And they hate their kids. The Mitzkins are now fans of the rabbi.
 
The board played one of those hero songs before Shabbat to praise our rabbi. The rabbi listened, said "thank you," and expressed disgust that he had to see the congregants.

That class on children in our shul and circus animals had nothing to do with psychology. It was just the rabbi ripping on the children and families in our congregation. They're not normal and they need help. The rabbi made that clear.