Doubling Down or Splitting Tens

I knew one day this blog would get me into trouble. I thought for sure I would wake up one day and there would be an army of Haredim in front of my house with pickets and signs, wearing yellow stars and calling me a Nazi. That of course would never really happen as they don't go to the army and so would presumably not show up at my house as one.

Something more interesting actually happened. I was in shul the other night and one of my fellow congregants says something to the effect of ' you have made the shul famous'

I stare at him blankly.

'you have a blog and have been writing about us'

Oh

That

I didn't know how to respond since the very few times ( 2 out of 48) that I have written about the shul this person was one of the ones I was complaining about .

oops

At first I was worried that I might have said something horrible and about this person in particular and I felt bad.

For about a minute.

Then I thought that well at least now he knows how I feel so maybe he will cut me some slack when I am trying to pray.

I am still amazed after 55 years of life on this planet I am still an optimist sometimes.

What a dummy.

The next day the same person comes up to me, we spoke a bit and I mentioned that I understand how people need to talk in shul but I only have a problem with three points in the service and specifically when I am saying the Amida ( silent prayer) and people are talking when they are done and I am not.

I was not sure how he was going to react but what he said did shock me a bit

' well I don't talk those times, and if I do it is because so and so ( a good friend of his) starts talking to me first, so it is not really my fault'.

How do you respond to this . Perhaps I was wrong and although I sit behind him and see him talking , I do wear glasses and maybe I am mistaken.

So the next day I checked to make sure.

I was not wrong.

I spoke to someone about this encounter and he told me that several of the members of the shul had read this post and were very upset because I was badmouthing the shul. They were even going to have the Vaad ( leadership committee) of the shul discuss it with me but it was deemed unnecessary in the end.

I said "really, why would anyone care, less than 100 people read it and they are mostly friends and family" ( consider yourself a member in a very exclusive club)

He chuckled and said that people thought that thousands were reading it.

'My own kids don't care what I have to say why would anyone think thousand of strangers would?'

So I have been thinking about if I should write about this at all. I am not sure how anyone in my shul even found out about the blog but it seems some of them must be reading.

Wouldn't I be offending them again with this post?

Is it worth it?

Surely the point was made. Did I have anything else to gain?

Was I doubling down on a sure thing or splitting 10's.

I am not sure.

Blackjack was never really my thing.