The Schtick (Shamed by a Rabbi)

"He that fails to command his thoughts will soon lose command of his actions." -Anonymous

Two weeks ago, I was a guest at a Jewish wedding. All was going splendidly as the band began playing Hava Nagila which is the song traditionally played at weddings and bar mitzvahs. Upon hearing the song, wedding guests customarily reach for two chairs to lift the bride and groom into the air for all to see (click here to view this tradition AND/OR see above photo).

If you scanned the crowd at this very moment, you'd have noticed sights stereotypical to Jewish weddings. The 87 year old Grandma smiling and clapping but sitting at her table to save her precious energy. Little children running rampant around the room. The excited bride trying to soak in the glory. Her father scanning the room with great pride. And a red-faced man turning purple as if he was constipated and about to explode. What?!

In the excitement of the moment with everyone clapping in joyous celebration, I ran to the chair to help another man lift the groom. I should have thought more carefully. The groom was a 230 pound lineman with giant muscles. With great exertion, I helped lift him above my head but his moment of glory was hardly that. While surely the groom expected to bounce up and down in delight, his ascent in the chair lasted about as long as an escaped prisoner making love in a brothel.

I dug in deep but my L4 vertebrae slipped and I collapsed to the ground. The groom came crashing down on top of me dislocating my shoulder and knocking my head against the ground causing me to black out. The last thing I remembered was a woman screaming, "Oy!"

I "came to" while being carried off the floor by the rabbi and a boxy Jewish woman with a mustache whom the others called Auntie Schwartz. I know it's hard to believe but she was screaming at me as if I was guilty: "What kind of mushuggeneh (idiot) are you to try lifting him?! A facocta nebbish (f-cking nobody) like you had this coming!"

As they lay me down outside of the hotel banquet room, the Rabbi was kind enough to share some wisdom: "It was Winnie the Pooh who said, 'Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?'" Then, as he walked away, he kicked me in the side (which reminded me of the dirty moves by former Detroit Piston, Bill Laimbeer).

I lay there feeling terrible guilt and shame for dropping the groom at his very own wedding. I was probably one of the last people they decided to invite to their wedding and what d'ya know, I almost ruined it. So let a lesson be learned. Keep your wedding on the smaller side to avoid the riff-raff. And don't let people with weak backs participate in the Hava Nagila. Because there's only one thing worse than wedding crashers: WEDDING CRASHES.