A chessy retrospective as Shavuot nears

Judy is off, so we’re reprinting her 2012 run-up to Shavuot.

Shavuot? Already? How is that possible? Didn’t we just put away the last of our Pesach dishes or, alternatively, unpacked our luggage? I’m actually still eating toasted coconut covered marshmallows because my son Jeremy always insists that we have more than enough to last through Pesach.

Shavuot is near — a three-day Yom Tov. Three days, six huge meals to shop for, prepare, serve and clean up after, and lots of company.

For our men … are you sure you can handle three days of eating and napping? Yes, you guys do stay up all night learning, I’ll give you that. But let’s also remember that you take a quick nap after dinner before heading off to shul. Once there, depending on which shul you belong to, you’re catered to all night long with either dairy goodies or barbeques. And let’s be honest, how many of you take catnaps in between your eating and learning? And then after davening you come home and sleep until we drag you out of bed for lunch.

Shavuot learning has certainly come a long way since I was kid! There was a table with some sponge cake, heavy marble cake (which I ate the top off of every piece) and soda. There weren’t four different types of cheesecakes, crepes, salads, wraps and coffee stations. Men did fall asleep, though, just as well back then.

During the day when Yom Tov was not on Shabbat (no eruv in Boro Park in those days) we all walked to 14th Ave and either set up a nut stand or participated in the games. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain. The owner of a nut stand would set up a game that you would play with filberts or almonds in their shells. You either had to roll the nuts and knock other nuts off the table or you had to throw it into a hole cut out of a box. If you won, you were rewarded with nuts; if you lost, the owner of that nut stand got to keep your nuts. Kids today don’t know what they’re missing.