How can one respond to non-stop shul talking? Is there really any way to stop it, or will it go on through all the pauses and bimah clops forever. Here is a list of the different ways that shuls have tried to stop the talkers.
The traditional bimah clop – doesn’t work too well because its used for everything from morid hatal to a signal to start singing mazel tov, I wonder if the clop makes people stop talking and start inserting random prayers into the davening?
Nuuuuuuuu!!!! – this is usually done by one really irritated member of the shul who just cant take it anymore, lets just thank the Lord that the folks in Texas are laid back because they are all gun nuts.
The davening or laining pause – is this even allowed, I never understood how the chazzan could just stop laining or chazaras hashas to hint to the talkers that it was getting bad. Its usually the rabbi who signals with an angry hand gesture to stop and start. Immediately after the chazzan starts up again the talking begins.
The Good Samaritan – this is the guy who walks up to the talkers and humbly says something like, listen guys why don’t you just take it outside? This guy is always ignored, I feel like they want to tell him to just daven and leave them alone but they don’t, they just ignore him.
The mussar guy – this is classic in a yeshiva setting or frummy shul, this is the person that uses the power of halacha against the talkers. Things like the mishna brura says its better not to come to shul then talk during shul or random mussardicke things like you are going to rot in hell for eternity if talk in shul and that sort of thing. I feel like this is similar to telling someone not to push the red button.
The Rabbi – in very extreme cases the rabbi will actually intervene to shut the talkers up, although it’s usually done from his seat with a look of death or one of those stopping the baal koreh moves.
The contract – in the five towns there is a shul that made everyone sign contracts that they wouldn’t talk in shul, a little extreme but I guess it was a big problem.
The stare – usually done by the Rabbi as well to signal that he is getting pissed.
The kiddush club – many people don’t know this but the kiddush club helps foster sanctity in shul, at least until the revelers get back sloshed from single malt and smelling like matzchas herring.
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{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
In my shul, there are often shushing wars. The kids or adults in the back get shushed, which somehow pisses them off, which in turn causes them to shush back, making double the noise.
You need some good shushers with mean eyes.
You forgot one, “The kidney puncher”. I’m enough of an obnoxious jerk to use violence. Plus, I just like hitting people.
I highly doubt that you use violence in a Shul.
Moshe, you have issues.
Only way to stop talkers is to start earlier. My Chabad minyan starts at 10:30, the talkers don’t show up before 11:30. If we started at 9:30, the talking would be irrelevant, as it would be Aleinu by the time they show up.
veebee, whatever works.
trs,
You can come up to them and say: “Did you know that all those Cossack massacres of Jews in 17th-century Poland and Ukraine happened because of people like you?”
Yeah, that’s gonna work, it’s gonna shut them cause them gonna be laughing their asses off at you.
Moshe I have experienced the kidney puncher and it works quite well.
CA: Good one
What about telling people how quiet it is during church?
If someone tried to assault a member of my Shul, they would find themselves arrested and kicked out of the shul. Hell, we had a person attempt to arrest another member for showing up with chicken-pox.
At my shul women talk non-stop, but there’s nothing I can do, since most of them are 3x my age. I can’t just start shushing , it would be very disrespectful (of course the talking is disrespectful as well)
It’s incredibly annoying when I can’t follow the leyning, because the ladies are discussing their recipes and their children’s lives.
Frum Satire, I just wanted to say kol hakavod, your blog is really fascinating. I just found the blog a day ago, but I’m officially a fan already.
Chava, come over and say “you’re not at the store, stfu”. At least the shock of hearing you say that will shut them up.
there’s the ’shush police’ at some shuls. the person who will get up and tell the talkers to be quiet when the pointed stare does not work to shut them up.
I ask people if they would behave the same way in a Buddhist temple.
this all reminds me of that barbie girl song
Rentsy I would rather get clobbered by a chumash then a buddha
If you cant beat em join em, why dont you get in on the action.
I’ve never been in a church, but according to what I saw in movies and TV, I can’t imagine anyone talking in it the way Jews do in shul. Shuls aren’t treated the same way lehavdil churches are.
Moshe: I think I like the stfu approach more, as opposed to the kidney punching method.
Anon: What Barbie girl song?
CA: It’s true that the gedolim of yore, most notably the Tosfos Yom Tov, have said that Tach and Tat and other pogroms have come about due to the lack of respect in our shuls. But I don’t want to sound like an asshole and tell that to these people. I mean, do you really think they’re going to give a rat’s ass?
If you can’t beat em, leave em. I don’t make a scene (I certainly don’t punch kidneys). I just go to a different shul.
HESH:
i used to be very against the idea of the kiddush club, but i became a big fan of it after i realized how much it continues to shul decorum:
http://agmk.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-love-kiddush-clubs.html
the shul i used to daven in semi-regularly was the worst shul i’d ever seen in terms of decorum. i’ve been filling in recently as the ba’al kore. i’m sure a lot of people hate me because i adopt a tactic you didn’t mention. i simply stop leining and refuse to proceed unless there is silence. sometimes the gabbaim or rav tell me it is as good as it will get and i should continue. but i refuse. i’m not going to fight with the talkers. i just wait them out.
“this is similar to telling someone not to push the red button”
true that
I politely once asked someone who spent the entire Kabbalas Shabbas and Maariv davening talking, how he knew when shul was over. Being that I was 22 and he was 52, he got all defensive and explained that he talked only at the parts that were muttar to speak. After I politely explained that you can’t talk after Borchu, he called me a f**ing piece of s**t, while sitting in shul.
It’s not the talkers; it’s the daveners. The daveners just keep saying the same thing over and over again. At least the talkers are original once in a while.
I’ve seen them stop until everyone shuts up. I told the old biddies who were in front of me gabbing up a storm, “you know they stopped because people were talking?” they just went on talking. Eventually, though they were the last ones talking and shut up. But as soon as they start the service, people go right on talking again.
As for the church thing, I’m a gioress. Yes, people sleep in church instead of talk.
Michal
is that intentional? or a mistake?
In the last post you also spelled it like that.
(If its a mistake, the proper spelling is “hashatz” or hasha’tz which stands for hashluach tzibur (baal tifilla), amd “shas” is the Talmud)
A contract? Wow, it must have been bad there!
At my shul, we go through cycles of more/less talking during chazarat hashatz for shabbat mussaf. When it gets really bad (like there’s been a lot of talking up to that point), just before the repetition the rabbi will make an announcement, basically telling people to be quiet or please take their conversations outside into the hallway. That’ll work for a few weeks and then he’ll have to make another announcement.
The IDF knows how to fight fire w/ fire.
But go into a mosque & the muzzies are silent & respectful.
Yet we run our mouths in shul. No wonder the Navi said Hashem doesn’t want our ‘z’vachim’. If we go to shul to talk, where do we go to talk to Hashem?!!
This was not meant to be funny b/c it isn’t. Want Hashem to listen to our prayers & not theirs? then let’s do what we’re supposed to. We worry about being part of the ‘chumra of the month’ club but why can’t we just shut up in shul? If we want Hashem to listen to our prayers, then we better shut up & pray.
The talking in shul issue, as far as I can tell, is primarily an Ashkenazi problem.
At my father-in-law’s Yemenite shul there is NO unnecessary chatter.
Jonny,
I wouldn’t generalize all sephardic shuls as non talkers, I know of a few sephardic where the talking is totally acceptable, kind of like a dinner party. Shushers are non existant there, they would probably be considered as “rude”.
Consider yourself lucky to have a shul where people don’t talk, they are becoming harder to find.
In Montreal, we have one of the highest ratios of sephardic to ashkenaz Jews, so we have many sephardic shuls. That’s when you realize that you have the talkers everywhere. When you go to big American cities, most shuls are ashkenaz, you’ll be lucky to find a few “militant” sephardim that want to have their own nusach. They are the type that are usually serious enough not to talk during davening.
My brother has paper pasted in the inside of jacket and when people are talking too much he politley walks over, taps them and them whips open his jacket for people to read.
“adu shveig adu peig”
My yiddish is messed up, so I migh thave written it wrong but essentially it’s “shut up or drop dead”
lol
At the shul I went to in NYC, there was plenty of idle chatter there, in the women’s section. This infuriated me, and I was known to glare and/or shush. What I’d inevitably end up doing is going straight to the FRONT ROW (which was usually not occupied), and THEN glaring/shushing if I could still hear it. I am Baal Teshuva, and still really working hard to get onto the Derech where I belong, but I can be quite lazy. It was not very often I actually made it to shul, so when I did, I was there to DAVEN, not BS about hairstyles, cute guys, and who’s dating whom. ARGHH!!
I like the note pasted in the jacket idea, though:
“SHUT THE HELL UP, GIRLS!!”
A new way I heard to get people to be quiet is to ask them to say Tehillim for someone who you know of who is sick. Most talkers will immediately say stop talking and say Tehillim if you say gently, “Hi, excuse me, my grandmother is sick, would you mind saying some Tehillim.”
At least its not rude, mean and it works for the two minutes they say Tehillim.