There are all different types of people at a typical chasunah, and over the course of your life, you get to be all of them. Well, maybe not the very shvitzy guy who does pushups at Keitzad Merakdim. But first you’re the little kid running around at the end of the wedding way past your bedtime, acting overtired and eating way later than you’re used to. Then you’re a friend of the chassan and kallah, dancing elbows first and knocking things over. Then you have a stage where you’re kind of sick of weddings. Then it comes back around, where now your friends are making weddings, and you get to enjoy the night out with your spouse.
“Um, we’re sitting separately.”
“Not in the car we’re not!”
And then eventually you’re the older people at the wedding, overtired and up way past your bedtime and eating way later than you’re used to.
My youngest brother got married last year, and my kids are entering shidduchim, but right now I’m in the stage where my neighbors are marrying off their kids.
I go to some of these chasunahs, because this is a new parashah in my life—neighbors marrying off their kids. My parents, meanwhile, are asking me, “You still go to neighbors’ weddings?”
Still? This is the fifth one!
My mother specifically owns a nice coat for chasunahs; she throws the coat and a sheitel on over her weekday clothes, she doesn’t take the coat off, and she’s in an out in five minutes, explaining to my father why she couldn’t be in and out in three.
But that’s about how long we’re at the vort. And we definitely have to go to the vort. My neighbor’s son got engaged the other week, and I went over to him in shul, and said, “Mazel tov!” And he said, “My vort is next Monday.” And I said, “Yeah, I know! I’m coming!” So I went to the vort with my wife, and we were in a rush, so I walked in and said mazel tov and left. Which was exactly what I had done in shul, but this time with even less conversation. So I’m glad I got dressed up for that.
“Don’t tell me mazel tov at a random time; tell me mazel tov in a room that I’m paying for at a time of my choosing!”
And you’ll say, “Yeah, but maybe they wanted to feed you too. Yidden get a special simcha out of feeding people.”
And the answer is that no, they didn’t, because everything at the vort was milchig. On a Monday night. I think if you’re going to serve milchigs at a simcha, you have to put it on the invitation. This is why they say milchig simchas are cheaper; they’re cheaper if you don’t write it on the invitation.
But it’s definitely a good idea to make a night of going to the actual chasunahs, at least some of the time, so you can sit at the “parents’ neighbors’ table,” which is full of other people whose simchas you’re going to try to avoid. You’re friends of convenience. Every man has certain “walking home from shul” friends that he would never talk to in any other context. And then he sits next to them at a wedding and realizes there’s no way he can maintain a conversation with them for 3 hours. It’s ten minutes, tops.
At the last neighbor’s child’s chasunah I went to, I sat with a guy from the next block over—too far to invite to any of my simchas, but the ba’al simcha lives right between us. It was just me and him at a random table, plus a bunch of people we didn’t know, because we somehow ended up at the slower hallway Maariv, and the neighbors’ table was full. Officially, this was a table for the other side, but I don’t think anyone at the table was from the other side, because people kept coming over to the two of us and asking if it was okay if they sat at this table. I think we were the only two people who knew each other.
So I asked how each of his kids are doing, but just the ones whose names I knew, and he asked about mine, none of whose names he knew, and then he brought up an article that I’d written that he really liked but he’d forgotten what it was about, and that was it. Then I pretended my wife wanted to go home, and I avoided him for a while until she actually did. Nice guy.
Actually, I ended up avoiding him for way more than was comfortable, because as it turns out, women develop lifelong bonds with their neighbors and a woman would never abandon her neighbors mid-conversation just because her husband is trying to pretend she wants to leave. And she’s only not talking to them during dancing. And the husband can’t come in during dancing. Nor will she hear her phone.
I find that going to chasunahs for your friends’ kids is so much less exciting than going to your own friends’ chasunahs, though. You’re happy for them that they’re marrying off some kids, you guess; but I mean technically, you do not care. The parents’ lives aren’t even changing that much. Their kid’s going to be home less, but he was already home less, because he was in yeshiva. The whole mazel tov is that they’re no longer supporting him financially in the same way? That they found someone else to do so? This isn’t really a humongous life change for you.
Though I guess this is better than if you’re an actual friend of the chassan, and his life is changing in a major way and you don’t know if you’ll ever see him again.
“Why are you marrying a girl from here? Do you know how long it took me to get here? You’re not gonna live here, are you?”
Whereas now that your neighbor is having one of his kids move out, if anything, you’re thinking he might have a spare bedroom for when you have guests. But you barely even know what the chassan looks like. I mean you’ve seen him in shul, recently, but it’s not like you’re ever really going to spend time with him. You’re not gaining a neighbor. You don’t even know his name. You had to look at the invitation to write the check. You heard his last name once and then saw it in print and realized you misheard it.
You’re mainly there to support your neighbor. Like you know how every chassan who doesn’t have a ton of friends invites his entire yeshiva for the dancing, so the kallah’s father will think, “Oh yeah, he does have a lot of friends! And they only like dancing; not the rest of the chasunah!”? Well, both sets of parents need a lot of friends too so the other side will think, “Oh, good, we’re not the only people in their lives. They do have friends! So many friends that some of them are sitting at our tables!”
You’re there for the dancing! There is specifically a “father’s friends” circle, and you have to be a part of that!
It’s not a very exciting circle. It’s not a very loud circle. No one gets lifted on a chair.
The circle is mainly people walking around holding hands so they don’t have to strain to talk to each other over the music. No one’s hand is wet, no one’s back is wet, no one’s doing pushups… It’s one ring, and the dancing is not so strenuous that someone has to bring in Slurpees.
In the chassan’s circle, every time someone new dances with the chassan and the general crowd knows who this other person is, everyone goes, “WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” like can you imagine? This person is dancing with the chassan? At his chasunah? And I know both people! What are the chances?” No one WHOOs in the father’s circle, which is nice, though you also feel a little like you’re missing out, but I mean if you were in the chassan’s circle, you’d be like, “I don’t know either person.” Or you know the wrong person, like, “Oh, who is that rosh hayeshiva dancing with? Wait, is that the chassan?”
Someone in the chassan’s circle is giving out neon glow sticks, and someone in the father’s circle is giving out ear plugs. So you all mishear fewer names in the future.
So the whole chasunah can’t be just parents’ neighbors. If it were, it would be over before the second dance.
“Why was the music so loud?”
And no, we don’t just think it’s loud because we’re getting older, because at every chasunah now, I see at least one baby wearing those big blue ear protectors.
That’s another thing that comes full circle. That, and leaving early.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia and is the author of seven books, published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send questions, comments, or ideas to MSchmutter@gmail.com. Read more of Mordechai Schmutter’s articles at 5TJT.com.
