Shul Announcements: VaEtchanan and Tisha BAv

by Rivka Schwartz

This Tisha BAv we’ll be sitting on the floor. The way renovations are going, that’s the most comfortable way to sit in our shul.
 
Sinat Chinam, baseless hatred, is the reason for the destruction of the Second Temple. And we want to blame Bernie for that.
 
The rabbi’s note of the week: Everything at Kiddish is great. But the egg salad is disgusting. He believes that we are still in exile because of the person making the egg salad. They’re causing Sinat Chinam.
 
Chesed Opportunities: Teach Fran how to make egg salad. We need somebody to teach Fran how to purchase eggs and peel them. And we need a therapist to explain that pre-peeled eggs are disgusting.
 
Contemporary Halacha Classes: When Mourning Is Too Much- Renovations That Don’t End. The Isur of Using Pre-Peeled Eggs- How to Ruin Shabbat for Me and What Could Be a Good Egg Salad. Fran's Egg Salad and What Destruction Tastes Like. How Our Members Caused the Destruction of The Temple- How Descendents Affected the Past and How the Thought of Bernie Can Kill a Really Good Day and Generation.

Rivka’s Community Rundown
We always sit on the floor for Tisha BAv. I think the rabbi was just making a point that the board is full of a bunch of idiots.
Usually our members sit on steps, because they can't bend that much. We have a very out of shape congregation. The most agile member can sit on a chair by holding onto the armrests. That's the extent of our agility. Holding an armrest to brace the fall onto the chairs. Our members don't sit. We fall onto chairs. And for Tisha BAv, we fall onto the stairs. Our members sitting for Tisha BAv need CNA help. We need nurse aides in our shul to ensure the congregants can get up. I see a congregant on the floor, there's an issue.
We don't even have steps to sit on now. That's real mourning. With the renovations, it's just flat concrete floor.
Renovations are disgustingly slow. They have the destruction thing down. Our board is very good at ruining things. They've destroyed the shul real well. It's the perfect Tisha BAv at our shul. You want to celebrate Tisha BAv, come to Beis Knesses Anshei Emes uSefillah.
That's what happened with the destruction of the Temples. It was a renovations committee who got the destruction part down and then left it for a year. And they never got to the renovations. It was our board and renovations committee. And members who don't pay dues. And exile.

And then the baseless hatred. Our congregation has a lot of hate. The members of our shul are a good reason to hate. I would have to say, we did not cause baseless hatred. There is reason to hate the other members of our shul. With their hats, and the bad jokes they repeat, and the messed-up egg salad. There are a lot of very good reasons to hate our membership. If we were around in the times of the Beit Hamikdash, they would be able to say to Gd that they had a reason. It would be a Mitzvah to hate Bernie.

Fran doesn't get it. The eggs are disgusting. Pre-peeled eggs. There's something about them. It might be the vinegar they sit in. Whatever it is, it causes everybody to hate Fran.
Every problem in our shul comes back to Fran's egg salad.
Fran's egg salad did get me through Tisha BAv. When I was down and thinking I can't make it through the fast, I thought of her egg salad. It kind of made me never want to eat again. Thinking of Fran's egg salad actually made Tisha BAv a joy. It made it feel like mourning is a good thing.
Most people eat the egg with ashes before Tisha BAv, known as the Seudah Mafseket. I just had Fran's egg salad. Felt the destruction right there.

Being around our members, I'm truly in a constant state of Tisha BAv.