Wooden benches

Begin rant

I recently walked into a shul that had wooden benches. Not the kind that actually have cushions on them, or the kind that fold down, but plain, flat, hard wooden benches where the seat and the backrest are at a 90 degree angle.

Come on people it’s 2022, time to move on!

I used to joke that Jewish people like to sit on these benches because they want to get used to how it’s going to feel inside their coffin.

But seriously, my shul switched out most of our benches for comfortable chairs and tables over a decade ago and a couple of years ago finally got rid of all of them all together and everyone is wondering why we didn’t do it sooner.

I don’t know about you, but I’m over the wooden benches era, and I know there are still plenty of shuls that still use them. It’s hard enough to get people to come to shul to begin with, and when you give them an extremely uncomfortable surface to park their derrieres on for several hours, it’s no wonder it’s hard to keep them in there. (all puns intended)

Rant over.