It was a wonderful Pesach in Shul, nice davening, good learning and a great time to spend with friends and family. The guests provided us will many wonderful Baalei Tefillah and we all benefited from their inspirational davening. Of course people are not perfect and we were provided with some growth opportunities over the course of Yom Tov.
One growth opportunity occurred when one of the guests, who has a fine voice, added some chazzanus flourish to his davening from the rear of the Shul. Shuls do not usually have rules on how loud you can daven or whether there are chazzanus limitations, so no rules were broken here, it just took away from the Baalei Tefillah leading the service. Of course, nobody said anything, although a few people glanced back to check out the identity of the back-of-the-shul Chazzan.
Personally I tried to recall the To Be or Not To Be Annoyed post I had written and worked on getting over this minor disturbance. At the end of the day I was able to enjoy the Chazaras HaShas and the Hallel of the Chazzan. Later that day I was reading a sefer and the author made the point that challenges give us the opportunity to grow, which gives us a little perspective on issues like this.
Shuls aren’t perfect, people aren’t perfect and we’re not perfect, but by dealing properly with challenges and annoyances we move step by tiny step closer to a more perfect existence.