Queens Jewish Link
Connecting the Queens Jewish Community 
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.
One afternoon, before I got married, I went with a friend to a Yankees game. We brought sandwiches from home and figured it would be a good idea to wash our hands in a bathroom on the way up to our seats. After we washed, we realized it would be easier to buy drinks before we went up to our seats. There weren’t many people at the concession stand, so we got on line. When it was our turn, the cashier gruffly asked us what we wanted, and we both wordlessly pointed to the soda we wanted.
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.
If my memory serves me correctly – which it generally doesn’t these days – it was about 25 years ago that I typed and emailed a d’var Torah for the first time. This was back in the days when AOL and the ubiquitous “You got mail” ruled the email world.
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.
Say the words “finding teachers” to any yeshivah principal and chances are he’ll roll his eyes and perhaps even snort. He may likely also break into a sweat and his heart will begin racing. I think it’s safe to say that finding qualified and competent teachers is the bane of every yeshivah principal’s existence.
