News

 The other day I made an appointment to get a haircut. When I arrived at the barber shop, the barber asked me if he could take a customer before me, as the customer was a chasan. I allowed the chasan to go first. While getting his haircut, the chasan shared some of the sardonic quips people were telling him about marriage. “Enjoy your last days of freedom,” “Marriage isn’t a word; it’s a sentence,” and other such lines.

Our plumber, Menashe, is a wonderful guy. He’s the type of person I am happy to meet almost anywhere: at a wedding, a parent-teacher conference (some of our children attend the same schools), or in one of the local stores. The only place where I’m not so excited to see him is in my house, because it means he’s coming to fix something that broke and it’s going to cost me. The truth is that when something needs to be fixed, I very much anticipate his arrival. But I would rather not have needed to be so happy with his coming in the first place.

 Shortly after our marriage, my wife and I moved into our first apartment in Flatbush. For the first three months of our marriage, we lived in Flatbush while my wife finished a one-year post-seminary there.

A few years ago, my dear friend Rabbi Naftali Eisgrau shared with me the following anecdote:

Making a simchah of any kind – a bris milah, a bar or bas mitzvah, a vort, and of course a wedding – is always a blessing. It’s a blessing that inevitably carries with it some level of stress, as there are so many arrangements and details that have to be navigated. The wise person remembers that it’s a blessing even while feeling stressed.

Last week, the Super Bowl featured the Kansas City Chiefs against the Philadelphia Eagles. There was even more hype than the usual Super Bowl excitement because the Chiefs were looking to become the first team to win a three-peat in the Super Bowl, after having won the last two years. Nine teams have won back-to-back Super Bowls. But none of those teams were able to win a third year in a row.