Chaim didn’t even look up this time. Maybe, Shaindy thought with a little stab of satisfaction, he was also at the end of his rope

Friday night, during the seudah, Heshy Brucker began making fun of the davening at the Alameda Gardens Ashkenaz shul. “It’s like everyone there was already chazzan or gabbai or candy man in another shul, and now they’re retired, so the whole thing is just about function,” he said.

Chaim nodded politely, the tip of his beard just a millimeter from the top of the chrein.

Shaindy was in middle of clearing the fish course when her son said this, so she couldn’t protest, but really, it wasn’t that fair. People could come to shul simply to daven, she thought, not everything has to be a circus. People can just quietly do their thing.

Her daughter-in-law Gitty had taken to following her back and forth as she served and cleared, and it took all of Shaindy’s concentration to make that work, to manage another set of hands that was not just completely unnecessary, but also unfamiliar with the entire kitchen setup.

This, Shaindy decided, was a nisayon, and let it not be said that she was a wimp. Instead of arguing with Heshy, she turned to smile beatifically at Gitty and thank her for carrying out the small glass tray of croutons as she, Shaindy, managed four steaming bowls of soup.

After the seudah, Heshy started to ponder his davening options. There were the Alameda Gardens Ashkenaz and Sephard minyanim, one at eight o’clock and the other at eight thirty, but they didn’t “speak” to him.

“Tatty, you know what I mean,” he explained. “You heard Lecha Dodi tonight, it was like a computer choosing from a pre-programmed playlist, everyone singing at exactly the same pitch while looking into their sefarim. I mean, come on…”

Chaim was learning Seforno, one of the highlights of his week, and he kept one finger on the place as he looked up to say, “I thought it was very nice, but different kehillos have different styles, I guess.”

“That’s exactly my point,” Heshy said. “They have a style, any style, but this is davka not a style at all.”