Unfortunately he caught me in an impatient mood, and my reply was flippant. But matching practice to belief is not just a challenge for kinky bohemian Jews. Chakira has some amusing anecdotes on flipping real estate in some of the frummier shuls in the NY area:

Who owns the seats in shul on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur? In Satmar’s crowded Rodney Street shul, if you own a seat, it is yours. Unlike a New York City apartment building, where sublets are frowned upon, a seat in Rodney can fetch high rental prices. One Satmar friend of mine told me that it would be silly to give up such a seat, even if you never rest your penitent posterior in it. The value of this real estate investment, like many in Williamsburg, seems to skyrocket with every passing year.

Contrast Satmar to their perennial enemies, Belz. Though its synagogue might be the grandest of all the Hassidic mega-shuls, Belz is no place for amateur real estate speculators. For thousands of dollars, you get a plaque and a seat when you are there. There is no subletting in Belz. Worse yet, your brother or father-in-law can never sit in your seat if you’re not there. Seats in Belz are meant for sitting, not for pleasing relatives and certainly not for investment purposes.

Even if you cannot get a seat in Belz or Satmar, hope still beckons from the myriad shteibelach of Geula and Williamsburg/BP. Oftentimes, these don’t even fill up, though many appreciate donations for use of a seat. It seems like the current penchant for big box stores enthralls the Hassidim as well, leaving the homey local competition somewhat empty in the biggest spiritual shopping season of the year.

You might not think that such internecine seating battles would take place here in my town. Yet it seems that we are all Belzers here. You see, I have seats in two shuls. One seat cost around $80, and the other came with a much pricier membership in the nouveau Evangelical Ultra-Orthodox synagogue. Of course, I went to the shteibelach, choosing to pray with a mix of retirees and young Hafetz Hayyim yeshiva adherents. Though I don’t have anything against the evangelical Ultra-Orthodox synagogue, I preferred the wonderful voice of our baal tefilah and the wonderful schmoozing with the retirees to the didactic sermonizing of the broken-record Mussarites imported from Lakewood. My brother used my seat in the UO shul for a few hours on the second day. For the most part though, it remained empty.

Content to leave my seat dormant, on Friday I received a threatening phonecall from the head of the Evangelical Ultra Orthodox synagogue. Ever the Jewish landlord, he threatened to evict me from my seat for the coming Yom Kippur unless I repented, relented, and went to his shul. Of course, I have no problem giving up my seat for anyone (even if I actually am in shul). At the same time, I am somewhat offended by the notion of being actively evicted from my seat. The notion of the Rabbi turning a profit on that same seat twice over seems doubly problematic.

My faith in High Holiday seating arrangements was temporarily shattered until I approached one of the retirees. One of my YU friends was thinking of coming for Yom Kippur. I asked the gabbai of the retirees’ synagogue if my friend could have a seat there. In his unique Hungarian inflection, the gabbai, an older man, reassured me. “No one will have to stand, everyone will have a seat; if he wants, he can even take my seat, I stand for most of the time anyway.”

*** One has got a temple
One a house of study
One frequents a barroom,
One a house that's bawdy.

We all must have something,
Must believe in one of:
A devil down below,
A good Lord up above.

But if you've got no one,
And want to spit on all,
you'll wander just like Cain,
Through every street and trail.

And every passer-by
will cross the street to dodge you,
And your whole wide world
Will be a cemetery.