A case of the tail wagging the dog :(

First, we had to yell loudly enough to get the tenth person to stop talking to the chief maintenance worker/Shabbos Goy (who was in the kitchen preparing breakfast) and get back into the sanctuary so that we'd have a minyan for the Chazarat haShaTz (Reader's Repetition of the Amidah prayer--the repetition can't be done without a minyan). Then, the president up and left the building before the end of the service, presumably to help with the synagogue's street fair just getting under way, leaving us without a minyan for kaddish. Nu, I thought we were all there to davven (pray). The street fair couldn't have waited another 10 minutes?

The president had been talking about running card-based (but no-poker-allowed) legal gambling in the shul to raise money. It was bad enough when we ran bingo years ago, but at least that was off-premises. The thought of having my synagogue became known as the local gambling den made me ill.

Fortunately, the prez seems to have come to his senses. He's thinking of scheduling a board meeting to vote on selling our current building and moving into a nearby house that's become available. The sooner, the better, I'd say.

Related: A guest in my own shul