That's Life 1/8/10

Issue of January 8 2010/ 22 Tevet 5770

Dear That’s Life,

Having two kids in college now, we eagerly look forward to both the secular and Jewish holidays for having our boys return home so we can feel like a complete family again. I make a wild fuss over them with food and questions, as only a Jewish mother can, and invariably feel like the comic iconic Jewish mother. On a recent Shabbos, when my boys returned home from shul, they reported that as they sat down next to their dad, he commented quietly but joyfully, “My cup runneth over.” That’s short and sweet and somehow doesn’t lend itself to Jewish father jokes.

Miriam Bradman Abrahams

Woodmere

Dear That’s Life,

There’s nothing like going out and spending a fun evening with some friends, and there’s nothing like feeling like an idiot at the end of the night.

The National Conference of Synagogue Youth’s (NCSY) annual “Q” event happens to be a lot of fun and it seemed from the crowd in attendance that it was a successful fundraiser for the worthy organization. Playing in a team of five couples, each team competes against other teams all of whom are sitting at other tables. There are numerous rounds of trivia and general knowledge questions and each team completes its answer sheet which is submitted after each round. The sheets are checked and scored, leaving one team with the highest score making them the winners. And while we all may have considered ourselves mildly intelligent on any other night, when you can’t identify all of the covers of the Dr. Seuss books being flashed across the screen, you wonder if you’re just having a senior moment or if you’re not nearly as smart as you thought you were.

Our table was able to complete certain sections correctly. We knew all of the characters from various breakfast cereals and were able to properly identify each Michael Jackson song that was played in the medley. Let’s just say we were very proud of ourselves for that one.  We knew the names of the five megilot and when they were read. One of the lawyers at our table knew what “MRI, EKG, ECG and CAT scan” all stood for — he is clearly not a tax attorney. One member of our team single handedly knew the names of each athlete whose jersey, minus the name on the back, was posted on the screen, regardless of the sport. That was impressive.

However, we didn’t know that the first college in the U.S. was Harvard and we could not properly work out the ‘shaot z’maniyot’ question to determine when plag mincha would be on a certain day, using particular times. I have not learned Brachot in a very long time and, being that I am one of the many Americans who cannot properly calculate a tip, no one would have looked at me to help with this answer. We didn’t know who the 8 neviyot (female prophets) were nor were we able to identify the front of Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in a series of photos of New York museums. We couldn’t properly identify the different soft drinks that were part of the taste test and I think I can still taste the Vanilla Coke in my mouth. Who thought vanilla and coke were a good idea?

The team that came in first place had won before. A pretty intelligent group with a combined SAT score higher than the national budget, their table was near ours and I was really thinking about screaming out wrong answers and trying to trip them up. But it wouldn’t have mattered because I would not have known the name of Yishamel’s (Ishmael) wife if my life depended on it and I could not tell you what ‘BCBG’ stands for when it’s used in texting. I’ll bet you $10 they got those all right and knew that Claus von Stauffenberg tried to assassinate Hitler. We thought he was the person who killed Archduke Ferdinand and started World War I. Oops.

The night was fun despite my wondering where all of my years of education went, because knowing that Oprah is older than Steve Jobs is not impressive and forgetting that “All the world’s a stage” is a quote from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’ is pathetic, especially when you hold a degree in English Literature. And while I wonder if I should be requesting a refund from the institutions I attended, I can’t imagine how many people got many of those questions correct either. Sitting in the corner wearing a dunce cap, I would have plenty of company, and we would have had fun.

MLW