From The Other Side Of The Bench

In the past I have attended Super Bowl parties, though I greatly prefer watching the game in the solitude of my own home. The incessant chatter by those not really interested in the game is most distracting. This year’s game, while not the most dramatic in history, was exciting till the end. Which is the most one can hope for. There was a stretch of years when, by halftime, for all intents and purposes the game was over. For the last number of years, however, fans were treated to games that went down to the wire and captivated the audience to the very end.
The fact that more people were tuned in to the game than any other televised event in the history of television speaks volumes to how the Super Bowl and all the pre-game events have taken root in American culture. I am sure that some will take issue over all the attention paid to this event, but there can be no denying that it touches a chord in male and female, football fan and non-football-fan, and yes, even those that are devoutly religious. The religious institutions that recognized the fact that their students are like any other Americans have done themselves and their students a favor by acknowledging it and making allowances for the reality of the situation. Not everything that is not holy is unholy and dangerous.
The reason why people identify with stars or sports heroes is beyond this article’s purview. So is the reason why some people tend to riot and loot after the defeat of their team, or even more confounding, why they would engage in such negative, anti-social behavior after their team was victorious.
What is an inescapable truth is that people identify with their teams, and there are many positive lessons to be learned by playing sports (teamwork) and watching one’s team rise or fall (empathy).
This year I neither attended a party nor watched the game at home. Instead, I attended the wedding of our good friends and neighbors and participated in our own unique brand of celebration. There was something majestic in watching the father of the bride and his siblings dancing with their father, the bride’s grandfather, in a sea of approximately 800 other guests.
There was something so spiritually uplifting in seeing the father—who, incidentally, catered my wedding 18 years ago—dance with his daughter, whom I have seen grow up on our block over the last 10 years. The feelings far surpassed the ones I felt after the Giants sacked Tom Brady, after the interception, the touchdown, the final drive to victory, and watching the game clock tick down to zero giving the Giants the victory and anointing them once again as the champions.
I confess I did catch a few glimpses of the game on a cell phone while at the wedding and did not feel conflicted at all. There were many parallels to be drawn without necessarily equating the two events, by any stretch of the imagination.
One thought that did cross my mind, however, was the level of preparation that each team engages in before the game. They send advance scouts. They watch hours and hours of film of the opposition to really get to know the other side and to prepare themselves for the task at hand. The reason why we have been treated to such a great level of competition lately in these games is that, in addition to working to perfect themselves, each team works the opposition. There is no doubt that the key to success is the level of preparation.
One has to wonder if the same level of preparation is expended in getting our children ready for the biggest game of their lives—marriage. The questions asked and the ridiculous inquiries made ignore fundamentals of the prospective bride or groom’s personality. Is he or she a teammate, or is it all about themselves? Can they share in the agony of their partner’s defeat and similarly be gladdened when their spouse succeeds?
Does the young man or woman have the capacity to understand the opposition? Without that fundamental trait, many drives will stall. Preparing oneself to really understand another human being is something we need to do a better job of as parents. Simply said, we need to provide our children with better tools and a better game plan for peaceful coexistence with the party on the other side of the ball. Very few 20-year-olds know themselves, let alone their soon-to-be spouse. Merely instructing our children in working to understand the other party is a good start.
The famed Maharil Diskin (1818–1898) was a master at understanding people. In his town, there were two people with the same name. The Maharil was quoted as saying that neither of them could be trusted, as neither was who they pretended to be. The first gentleman was a scribe, the second a water carrier. A young bar mitzvah boy appeared before the Maharil and the Maharil inquired from whom he had purchased his tefillin. When the boy mentioned the name of the scribe, the Maharil told him to go back to the scribe and ask for a refund. As it turned out, that scribe had sold 50 pairs of tefillin that were empty inside; they did not contain any parashios.
The water carrier, said the Maharil, was also a pretender, and the Maharil refused to take any water delivered by him. Pressed by the community as to why, the Maharil was adamant that the water carrier was a fraud.
You see, it seems that the whole town thought the water carrier was an ignoramus. But the Maharil knew better. He knew that secretly the water carrier was a sage with breadth and depth of knowledge in the Torah and all of its commentaries.
“I should be bringing him water, said the Maharil, and not the other way around. He pretends to be a fool,” said the Maharil, “but he is really a sage.”
So, two rings were earned Sunday night, one in recognition of a glorious season just concluded, the other with the hopes and dreams of a promising future. Both are cause for wild celebration.

David Seidemann is a partner with the law firm of Seidemann and Mermelstein and serves as a professor of business law at Touro College. He can be reached at 718-692-1013 or ds@lawofficesm.com.