The board meetings I've been skipping still revolve around looking for parcels of land. Good ol' inertia. Won't last forever, but one can always hope. Denial makes for peace, right?

We had a religious committee meeting and in the course of discussing possible things to get segments of the congregation interested in services, I mentioned that the new president's husband, a kohein, wouldn't mind some duchening. I fully expected the rabbi to shoot this down, but to my surprise, she's willing to try it if the koheins are interested. Maybe over Pesach.

I have tried to suppress my eagerness for this, because finding a Conservative shul that duchans has been something of a holy grail for me... I don't know why, if it's just the esoteric geekiness of it or the way it's the ultimate in conservadoxy... or just remembering that my parents would turn around from it when I saw it as a kid. You know, the light from the koheins' eyes will blind ya. That is so friggin' cool.

We've had a bunch of people over for sukkot -- a sukkah hop on Sunday and then various people all week. With the kids, the effort just about kills us, but it's been worthwhile so far. Dinner tonight was with the new cantor -- young guy, passionate, engaged. Showed him the amateur Jewish musicology section of my CD library. Perhaps that also will work out.

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the big idea
So the idea is to create a real Blogger blog for Things of Substance that I want to say, and then keep this as my kvetchfest location. It's taken a while to get around to setting up. Mostly, I still need to decide what Things of Substance I want to pontificate about. I'm supermotivated to pontificate, but writing takes so long and can be so easily shunted aside for more pressing things. I have a lot of more pressing things these days. Well, we'll see.

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they pull me back in
So, after all my overwrought speeches and my farewell to the religious services committee, I'm back. They couldn't find anyone else to do it, and the rabbi and the new president worked me over pretty well to get me to come back. And I was halfway doing it anyway, handing out honors on shabbat and worrying about whether or not we had ordered s'chach for sukkot. I told them I wanted to limit my collateral involvement by avoiding as many board meetings as possible, and in general that all the things I said in the spring -- about being overwhelmed by new job responsibilities and an infant, my distress at the move, and the general sense that staying around did no one any favors -- were still true. But, in a sense, I put down a bet -- they they would find someone else if they had to -- and lost.

Back six months ago I had half-baked ideas about the chavurah in town (attended once) or the folks I know up in Boston. But the truth is that with two children under five, we're not going anywhere. And in the meantime that warm feeling of knowing a building well, having babysitting, and the general rootedness we have to the placeness of it crept back in, not least because no actual outlays of money or new architectural plans or other unpleasant reminders of the move have taken place. The desire to escape cheerleading for the move was behind a lot of my wish to escape board meetings (and will similarly motivate a round of babysitting during the sermons this year). But as always, a move, if it ever happens, will be years away.

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Things have been humming along for a while, not so good, not too bad. There was a board meeting last night that seemed all set to wrap up. Then the planning VP took out big charts and showed us the land that, pending congregational approval, we will mortgage our current building to buy. Yes, just like that, after a year of nothing happening, the final crux of the issue is raised -- when I have a three-year-old and a three-week-old wailing for me at home... Well, I haven't come to board meetings for three years to not be able to register a vote now.

The property is about as far south as they can make it, about 12 miles from here, a good 25 minute drive. The people who live in the area were naturally falling all over themselves about how great it was, perfect for us, etc. Just as a year ago, it was left to S---- to get up, red-faced, and ask how we can commit ourselves to a mortgage and purchase when a survey of our capability to raise money hasn't even been concluded. The response was that the shul is dying and we need to do anything possible etc. etc. etc... all these same things being thrown out that I have heard for years.

And I guess that's really why no counter arguments can work; they have wanted to do this for years and have convinced themselves that there's no other way to survive. I wasn't going to get into it late at night. To be honest I don't like getting into the issue with any of them. They have such a strong groupthink mentality. Everything has to be done, this or that, or the shul won't survive. There's just no point in saying anything to them.

But what would I say, if someone were to ask me my opinion?

I would say that a month ago, I attended services at the Kane Street Synagogue, in Brooklyn, a Conservative shul in a historic building of 300 members, not that much larger than us.

The service was mostly lay-led by people who were not very proficient. They had an annual torah reading, i.e., it was long. The sermon was rambling and not very impressive. The spread afterwards consisted of a couple of plates of cookies.

And that synagogue, with all that, got 130 people to that service. All ages and backgrounds. Just a plain old, "vanilla" Shabbat morning.

Why are they successful and we aren't? Is it the quality of the service, the rabbi, the spread, the social atmosphere? It was because they wanted to be in shul on a Saturday. I've come to feel that that, and only that, is what separates successful from failing synagogues. For whatever reason, the members want to be there. That's the only thing that determines the fate of a shul.

Clearly, we don't have a membership like that now. How do you get one? In this state, in its Jewish life, the city is like the sun. Young Jewish life revolves around it. We may not be that close, but moving so far southward puts us distant from the sources of vitality and regeneration here. The people we need are knowledgeable and committed to Conservative Judaism, and they do exist in this state. If they are interested in Judaism the first place they look is in the city. Us moving far away will end any chance of ever connecting with them.

These are practical arguments. There are practical arguments on the other side. I fully understand that what is good for me and my family is not always what is best for this shul. But the question I keep asking myself is -- what should I say, if someone asked me -- when people have asked me -- how this makes me feel? How does it make you feel, when you are able to briefly realize a lifelong dream of belonging to a true neighborhood shul, for that to end?

What can I say? Would I say that I feel like one of my limbs is being slowly sawed off? I would say that I feel this marks the beginning of the end of my family's time in this state. I would say that this is a calamity for this community, my community, which has served us for 60 years. I would mention that someday soon I'll have to tell my daughter, as we drive by the building she just calls "the shul," that we can never go in there any more, it's not our shul. I would say that my heart is breaking.

I would say that, if anyone had asked me over the past few years how it makes me feel. The fact that so few people have ever asked me, I think, is the hardest part. There is so little honest human connection and feeling here. The biggest problem is not that they want to take the shul as far away from me as it is possible for them to do, it's that there are so few people I can talk to about it, people who care what it will mean for someone like me.

Well, that's what I would say.

Current Mood: melodramatic [default]

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wandering Jews: another exchange
Another machloket with my correspondent. This time was triggered by the NYTImes article on the death of a synagogue in Inwood. I spent two hours writing this; I may as well post it here.

( My interrogator emails meCollapse )

( And I respond...Collapse )

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We decided to open the doors today and have the bagels and everything like usual, just to see who would show up.

Unfortunately, there's no magical happy denouement to things... none of "them" came; it was just the usual 5 we had before we started the joint minyan. They announced at their minyan yesterday that they were trying again to strengthen their minyan every day of the week.

I gave a drash after leading services about Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. The rabbi told me afterwards that she never heard a more appropriate use of that story.

Our congregant who is saying kaddish was there yesterday, and she said one of the people who we all felt closest to was actually crying. Not that I want someone to cry, but it is a small comfort that someone there felt the way I do about it.

I still feel eaten up about this, day and night. I realize that what wounds me now is not so much that it happened as the tone and spirit of their cantor's letter. I literally bled for this minyan, I want to retort. (OK, I sliced off the tip of my middle finger cutting a bagel. Still!) We put the thing at the top of every monthly schedule mailing. We put it on our Web site. We put it in the bulletin. How can you say we didn't support it? So now it feels personal.

I told them that at this point I am more likely to become a Southern Baptist than to go back to the other temple.

Since the people who come, plus those who I can get in a pinch, is currently 9, we decided to call off morning minyans, except for the stable Friday group, until September.

-----------------------

Not to say that there aren't some good things: we interviewed a cantorial intern last night. She was quite young (24 maybe) and a she, which might be a concern in our congregation. But she did a nice job and seems committed to community building, which impressed people. Maybe the start of a more hopeful chapter.

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Kamsa, meet Bar Kamsa
The collaboarative minyan finally seemed to have achieved some success. We had Wednesdays at our shul and Thursdays at theirs. They didn't really need us at theirs, since they made minyan anyway, but we had three people from our shul (including me), going. On Wednesdays they had maybe 5-6 people coming on a regular basis, and we had 4-6. So sometimes there were more people from their shul than from ours at the minyan.

But I got to know their members and they seemed like nice folks, and they seemed to appreciate what we were doing, and pleasant times were had by all. I had to get up at 6:20 to set everything up and make the coffee, and wait around until 8:20 for everyone to leave. But it felt good.

Then the fucking inevitable shitstorm happened.

The proximate cause was not the minyan but an inadvertent mistake made by the rabbi. She has a mailing list of unaffiliated Jews in the hinterland, and who she has emailed in the past. Unbeknownst to her, some of those people joined Beth Am. When she emailed the list about an upcoming Open House, the ones who joined forwarded it to others at Beth Am.

The leadership at Beth Am has decided to respond by going nuclear. They say they will bring us up on charges with the United Synagogue for trying to cut into their membership. We are encroaching on their "territory" by where we are looking to relocate, and blah blah blah.

So far, so bad. But they also are cancelling the joing minyan. Our members' low turnout is proof of our bad faith.

I got wind of this yesterday and honestly have had a difficult time sleeping since then. I decided to write their spiritual leader and religious committee chair a letter, pleading for some kind of humanity in this insane situation. I have spoken with each a fair amount in the past and they struck me as decent people.

( My letterCollapse )
( His responseCollapse )

I am still reeling about it all. I can't believe that he would endorse all of this insanity. The crap about "G-d's House," as though God lives in either of these synagogues, filled as they are with totally arrogant, selfish, hateful fucking imbeciles.

It was stupid in a sense to believe that good intentions could make the whole thing float. And in truth it was a shonda that our members did less to support our minyans than their members did. But all the same it just feels like chillul Hashem. I'm in mourning.

What is it all if not sinat chinam? And you know where that got us. I just do not understand people.

Current Mood: crushed

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nothing gold can stay
They told everyone that there would be no "vote" -- vote is such a hard word -- and then proceeded to ask people to choose among the options with "dealmakers" and "dealbreakers" to discover "consensus" so that the planning committee "wouldn't have to waste its time on options that people don't want."

That's not a vote, or anything.

So, this after being shown glittering architectural renditions of the new sanctuary at the new building that will be built for $5 million. A bit of a loaded deck, yes. Though I couldn't help but laugh when the sanctuary was shown to have 325 seats, versus the one we have now, which has 225. For 15 people. Yes, a bigger sanctuary! Just what we need! All the purest narrishkeit you've ever heard.

We were one of 15 "dealmakers" for "stay and renovate," but there were maybe 11 who said it was a "dealbreaker." Something like 34 people said building someplace new would be a "dealmaker." No one dared to call it a "dealbreaker," not even me. (I mean, why shold I be the only one to raise my hand? I don't need to be ostracized.) So the options remaining on the table are basically where to move, not whether to move. The game is up.

I mean, I can't blame them. They did what they thought was best. Even though I feel they're being sold a bill of goods, it's not as though there are a bunch of people like me lining up to join. They've convinced themselves this is necessary.

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And in truth, as I've said here many a time, I am as selfish and partisan as anyone. My motives are simple. I think it's important that a Conservative synagogue have as a possibility that some people can walk. That means a location not in the middle of nowhere or by the offramp next to a strip mall. It means a community-based synagogue.

And all I would dream for my Jewish life would be able to live as not a hypocrite, that if I wanted to be a Conservative Jew, it should be possible to afford to buy a house somewhere in a decent neighborhood, and walk to a Conservative shul. That's all I ask from this world.

This is my narrishkeit, yes.

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In the past six weeks, Phase I of the zmirot "scheme" has come together nicely. At our house at 4 pm this afternoon we had B-- as well as, for the first time, D--- and his family over here as well. I made up a nifty zmirot handout from a public source .pdf bencher (with transliteration) and burned CDs for them with about 15 of the zmirot that I know. D---'s kids played with my daughter (a difficulty in the past was distracting her when company was over!) and we did about a half dozen zmirot. They really seemed to enjoy learning something new.

And the Cantor sounds genuinely interested in coming down to lead a session. When I told him about it after shul today he sat down then and there with a bencher and started into some tunes, most of which I had never heard before. He collects them, much as I would want to do.

It could be something nice. Now that the "pilot" has gone well I need to figure out where to go with this. I want to try to find people in the shul interested in it. Having it at the shul and flyers and so forth will be necessary at some stage, and will transition it from being my pet project into something that has a life of its own. But I am wary of the problems with it being institutionalized, where its success or failure would reflect on the synagogue. I think that's what the rabbi was most concerned about.

And I have to admit, too, that it feels cozy and haimish and I don't want to lose that by having it at the shul. But I would feel a little odd about making a flyer and having it advertise something at my house.

***********************

Another hopeful sign is that we finally have a viable joint minyan with "Beth Am," the nearby Conservative synagogue, and this is largely my doing.

With all of the people now saying kaddish in the synagogue, I have an impetus -- and an excuse -- to try to find places for people to say kaddish when we don't have a minyan. We really only have viable minyans on Friday morning, Monday afternoons, and sometimes Sunday morning. We had really given up on them for the other days of the week except for a shaky Thursday that I was considering ending, because it was me, R-----, and S----. Even the rabbi wasn't coming to that one.

So I discussed it with the rabbi and she approached the people at Beth Am. What scuttled this in the past was that their attitude was basically: "Joint minyan? Sure! Come over here and we'll have a minyan!" Which was not exactly what I had in mind. This time, though, they offered to come to us on Wednesdays and us to go over there Thursdays.

This was the first week of doing it, and though we didn't have a minyan on Wednesday (9), it felt good. We (okay, I) made a bagel breakfast, something we have meant to do but haven't accomplished in the past. Three people from them showed up on Wednesday, including their cantor/spiritual leader. Four from us went over on Thursday, including the rabbi, though they didn't need us to make a minyan.

It was clear from the getgo how much stronger they are, not just numbers-wise but in terms of energy. The minyan buzzes with people davvening. Afterwards they had French toast and eggs as well as bagels -- something they do every day.

A lot of people at our shul are suspicious of this. They don't understand how much more we are getting out of this than Beth Am is. Frankly, we just can't claim to offer a service of our own any other way. This way we get two fairly solid minyans instead of one shaky one. And the rabbi and their cantor get to talk shop, and connections are made, and so on.

Feelings are still a little raw after the failed merger initiative from last year. No one talks to me about this minyan without mentioning that. The truth is, if we'd had this going successfully for a year or two, the merger would have been a lot easier. Ultimately things collapsed because of mistrust -- people here were too scared of being taken advantage of to listen to a proposal in earnest.

**********************

These things are bittersweet, perhaps, because tomorrow is the big congregational meeting that will probably result in a vote to move. This is supposed to be a three-hour meeting to discuss demographics and direction, with four options being put in front of the congregation: stay and renovate, move to the spot near the old folks home, build in another location, buy an existing facility in another location. Of course since nothing has been sent to anyone in writing, how anyone is supposed to consider the options and make a reasoned decision is beyond me.

You just have to hope that there are enough querulous oldies there who understand that point to be able to hold the thing off for a little while. The problem is that the pro-move faction has been chomping at the bit to move for so long. For example, the membership committee chair isn't launching a membership drive until the vote is made to move, and so on. So many of the active people on the board are already far to the south. They are impatient with the idea of slow consideration and are likely to force the issue one way or another.

All those of us who are against the move have going for us is the possibility that the pro-move people will fracture into the other three options, leaving the minority with a plurality. Especially after people digest how much a move is likely to cost versus staying and renovating. But that is an inside straight.

For all the tzuris, one can't help reflecting on how much of my life I've given to the place. I have a lump in my throat thinking about it. I'm not looking forward to the morning.

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the oy oy oy show (apologies to Al Franken)
First, we had three deaths of people related to congregants in the past week. Three shiva minyans, three funerals. Everyone's exhausted. I'm exhausted from calling everyone all night to arrange minyans. Looks good, but hard work, and you have to be nervous until everyone shows up. I'm picking people up at 6:30 in the morning for this. I'm making wake-up calls. Oy.

Then, the rabbi called me on Tuesday to have a look at the work of the sofers we hired. A few months ago we decided to get a sofer to look at one torah that has a mistake and another that has a detached panel along a seam. Couple of small repairs, right? The rabbi knows an outfit, they're really good, they're Israeli, they will check all 15 of the shul's torahs very well and put it into a registry and everything. There is squawking abut this on the finance committee, because we had a sofer come in five years ago and people donated a lot of money to fix some torahs, so why do we need everything checked again? No one knows what was actually done, really... well, anyway, they OK'd the work, whatever.

Of course, some time ago, dear readers, you will recall that I said something about hiring a rabbi who is something of a traditionalist and how they aren't gonna like that. Well, you hire a real rabbi, the real rabbi hires competent sofers, the competent sofers find the real problems.

The sofers were very impressive. They had little scanner thingees to record a "fingerprint" for the torahs to register them, and they had all this technical stuff to tell me about inks and parchment and rollers and all that. Very competent, is the impression.

Well, the news from these apparently very competent people is that only two of the 15 scrolls are kasher.

(As the old joke goes, Ez mifracht, ez is nisht kasher.) [1]

You see, the ark is against an outside wall that's not insulated well, and when you have that you have temperature changes, and that causes moisture, which causes fungus, which is all over the scrolls.

Plus the previous sofer's corrections were done badly, for example on parchment that hadn't been cleaned well, so they had degraded. They showed me lots of broken letters and places where the letters were breaking up. I mean, once you looked at it, it was easy to see the problem. Some of the torahs are in such bad shape they are basically total losses -- it would cost more to fix than to commission a brand new torah.

And I looked at the column of estimates for how much to fix the others -- $5000, $3000, $2000, $4000, etc.

Oy.

I don't want to be in the room with some of the machers who gave money to fix the torahs last time, when they are told that the torahs need to be fixed all over again. It is just as well that I can't be at the board meeting tomorrow.

Oy yoy yoy.

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[1] A ritual butcher in a remote town sees that his town's cows have very strange discolorations on their meat. He consults the rabbi, who knows another rabbi, who knows a great rabbi in the city who will be able to determine if the discolorations render the meat treyfe.

The shochet and the rabbi travel many days and finally meet the great rabbi. They find the rabbi's assistant has many letters from all over the country describing problems with the meat, which he gives to the rabbi, who gives each only a cursory glance before writing down his opinion. The rabbi answers hundreds of such letters in mere minutes.

They are finally allowed to speak. Shocked, they ask him, "great rabbi, how is it that you can answer such detailed questions of halacha so quickly? Most anyone would need days to research all of the issues involved!"

"Gentlemen, it is really not difficult at all," he tells them. "Ez mifrecht, ez is nisht kasher!" If you have to ask -- it's not kosher! :-)

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( Fiasco is the only word that really comes to mindCollapse )

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The shul is on the eve of the Great Decision, or so it would appear from the externals. There is supposed to be a Board Retreat this weekend to ratify, basically, the concept of The Move.

( Becoming an Old-Age HomeCollapse )

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( Fewer Jews equals more Jews?Collapse )

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( Romanticism is a dangerous thingCollapse )
Perhaps I would feel like I could get over everything else if something deeply attractive about things on the inside would draw me there. I mean, I do like the people, for all that. I would miss them. But spiritually, things are still not really happening in the way I had hoped. That will have to be the subject of another post.

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I have meant to update here for a long time, and then every time I wanted to write, the amount of material to convey seemed overwhelming. So now there's a truly stupendous amount of things to write about, and it gets harder to write.

Yet there have been a lot of things going on, and it is so much of what I think about. I'll try to bite off a few descriptions of where things are in a few different posts, and maybe I'll get caught up before long. We'll see.

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Our Lady of the Cloverleaf
The executive board was presented with "Temple Beth Am's" formal merger proposal to us. The financials work out, but only if we don't hire a rabbi. B----'s note at the bottom -- "Dealbreakers: If we hire a rabbi. If we insist on a timeline for moving/new building" -- pretty much iced it. A round of Beth Am-bashing ensued on the part of righteously indignant board members. Everyone agrees we could do better than this. If we survive, that is.

But more importantly, B---- finally gave me the opening I had long awaited by broaching the idea of moving to be near L'Chaim Apartments and asking what people thought. In a shaky voice I finally gave my 2 cents: that "young families" need to be able to get to a shul, that it wasn't just halacha that made me feel that way, that if the lifeblood of the synagogue was younger members, putting the shul out far to the south would be folly.

Of course, it is my own selfish desire to walk to shul that motivates me, deeply. But I can't help that. I think it is ethically wrong to make a Jew choose between shabbat and shul. The fact that the Conservative movement's synagogues do this so often, I believe, is why it is in decline.

But I'm the meshugganah about this, and I know it. The other board members think that the problem with L'Chayim apartments is that they are too far north. Fifteen minutes south of us is still too far north.

One of the board members actually talked about how important it was that the shul be located near a highway off-ramp.

OK, not only is that a grotesque perversion of Jewish values... we are located 30 seconds off the highway ramp RIGHT NOW and we STILL had only eleven people this past Shabbat.

Well, they looked at me like I had two heads, but I got to say something of my piece, at least.

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I started a new text study class today based on the Or Hadash commentary to the Siddur. The idea was to do something as a draw for Shabbat services, to be held at 9:10 in the morning. The people who came were the oldies who showed up early for the service, but it was still four people. We mostly chitchatted about the Conservative movement rather than study.

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An article appeared in the local Jewish paper on Friday. It was on page one, and the title was "Temple ----: Move, Merge, or Stay Put?" A picture of the building on the cover.

The gist of the story is the accurate fact that our membership has declined over the years as the Jewish community has moved away. Fortunately only glancing mention was made of the rabbi's departure. The president of "Temple Beth Am" [nearby shul, not its real name] was quoted as saying that "They need to figure out what they will do next," which could be seen as pretty snarky if you were inclined to see it that way. F---- certainly did. He berated A--- about it on Friday night: "If we merge with them without exploring every other possible option, I will fight it as hard as I can."

They say no publicity is bad publicity, right? Well, it could have been a lot worse. And it's an open enough secret anyway.

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Ding-dong, the witch is dead
Bingo is gone. It had been losing money, and even on a non-playoff Sunday it had fewer than 275 people there today. We need 300 to break even. It hadn't been profitable in many months.

Absolutely no one is sorry to see it go. The exhaustion level that it caused was massive.

Me, the one who had the ethical problem with it... I wonder. I hope we won't regret it someday.

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I was involuntarily carless today so I walked a mile over to Temple Bingo on the off chance that someone needed the evening minyan. You never know; sometimes there are 10 people waiting for you there when you come; sometimes it's just me and one other person.

So I get there and a moderate-oldie is there who I've never seen before. She looks pissed. "I'm here to say kaddish and where is everyone?" she asks. Well, I tell her, I have come here just to lead the services, so we'll see if anyone comes. She remains pissed. "The sign says it's at 5:30; if it's not going to be here, why is it on the sign?" She yaps something about how the place "isn't what it used to be" and I try to explain to her that we have no problem making minyans when someone calls in advance, but that otherwise, yes, it's often difficult -- we've canceled a few mornings because too few people are coming. "Well this is all I come here for" she replies.

I go downstairs with a couple of the others just to make sure I don't say out loud what I'm thinking. Of all the nerve. People who never bother to show up any other day of the year, and they just think the minyan will magically appear when they happen to need it. And if it doesn't, it's my fault! No, not the fault of all the Mrs. Once-a-Years who don't show up when anyone else needs their minyan.

And lo and behold even though it's 5:30 a few more people do actually trickle in, and then we start pulling out a couple of Bingo workers, and we get our ten, even eleven. So all's well that ends well. But it's just so damn typical, that attitude. The shul is something for me to "get" what I need out of it, and the heck with everyone else. Encountering that attitude is such a turnoff. It makes you wonder if the whole damn thing isn't a sham, at base.

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Made minyan this morning, via another 7:04 phone call. (We start at 6:45.) Now I remember the really discouraging part of all this: when someone swears to you up and down that they'll come, and then they don't come, and you call them and they tell you they're not coming. Anyway, the person who came via the phone call showed up during tachanun... no one, myself included, knew whether to repeat the amidah. It's kind of pointless, since the minyan is there for the amidah, not for kaddish or the torah reading, yet no one shows up on time. We could shlep things out until #10 shows up, but then people complain about that. Still, a minyan is a minyan.

Trying to make assignments of honors for upcoming Shabbats... which is hard work. If the point is to encourage people who aren't coming to attend, which ones will actually attend if I give 'em an honor? Etc.

This week the torah reader's off, so I am responsible for a full triennial reading. I got some help from a new member with the last couple of aliyot, but it's still about a column and a half for me. And it's Thursday night, so time's a wastin'. Eep. His absence, and the absence of H-----, means that in fact the whole service is me on Saturday morning, unless one of the alters who can lead psukei shows up. (They refuse to commit to it in advance, making forward planning very difficult indeed.)

I also wonder whether we'll make a minyan. Last week we had about 12. A--- made another appeal to the Board, and made the sensible but apparently incomprehensible point that it's stupid to talk about moving the shul and building a new building, if no one comes to services. (The planning committee meetings about that are very hush-hush; although it is widely expected that the shul will move, there are a lot of obstacles and no one really does anything.) I appreciate it, because when the shul moves, I don't think I will be a member of it. I'm not sure whether to be disappointed by that or somewhat relieved at the prospect.

Plans for converting the social room have picked up a little -- "the guy who fixes stuff" said it would be easy and just a matter of getting hold of material for a curtain. So maybe that would happen sooner rather than later. I'm starting to get a little excited about the prospect!

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A note
A note about this journal: I'm not linking it to my own and don't plan to. As you might have noticed, it's a little meaner than I like to think of myself as being. I would not want any of it to get back to anyone. But at the same time maybe it is worthwhile to be honest about the situation and the small frustrations it engenders. Abandon hope and all that.

Also, I plan on adding a whole bunch of backdated entries as soon as I hook my laptop up to the internet again.

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