The most annoying people at shul are those who go around loudly shushing others. A great rabbi never goes up to a group of talkers and shushes them, only the ignorant do this. If you’re a shul shusher, who appointed you to this position? Why is it inevitably those people who enjoy power but completely lack distinction who shush others and tell them what to do? It’s never great Torah scholars nor the most observant who do this. It’s the insecure bossy prissy types. If you’re looking forward to giving reproof or dressing down someone, you shouldn’t do it. A great rabbi, when confronted with a noisy shul, says, “Chevra (friends).” He doesn’t get drunk and then starts banging on tables and going over to groups talking and shushing them and yelling across the room to tell people to shut up. I notice it is never people who are born and raised Orthodox who appoint themselves the shul shusher. It’s always the latecomers to Torah who get so filled with public piety and the desire to reprove others that they make Orthodox Judaism stink.
Raised a tea-totaling Seventh-Day Adventist, it disgusts me to see people getting drunk in shul and behaving badly and telling other people off.
