“Who made the dessert?” the rebbetzin whispered to me from across the crowded sheva brachos table. We were in the middle of the main course. Did she want to know if it was kosher? I wondered. Little did I realize that she was asking because the dessert was missing! None was to be found in the kitchen! Recognizing an emergency, I quickly checked the text message history on my cell phone to shed light on the subject. It indicated that dessert for the 40 guests had been delegated to a woman sitting at the other end of my table. When I consulted her, she said that the job was originally hers but was then given to someone else. She was not sure to whom.
Panic set in. As I dialed the number of my fellow coordinator, who was not present, my mind started racing. With most guests finishing their main course and no speeches planned, I shifted into makeshift creativity mode. This was even before she told me that the dessert obligation had been reassigned to me! Aha! That is why I bought that Duncan Hines brownie mix and Riches Whip, and so carefully noted on the receipt that it was for this sheva brachos.
Okay, I thought. We can philosophize about this later. Right now, we have to deal. My easy-going fellow coordinator offered to pick up dessert at Shoppers. In the meantime, I begged the MC to get two more speakers: longwinded speakers. Cuing him in on our dilemma, I specified that he pick speakers who would take their time and drag things out. I also begged those who were cleaning up from the main course to slow their pace. (They did not get cued in. Hey, we couldn’t let everyone find out about our little faux pas, and we certainly did not want it to get back to the baalei simcha.)
Two speeches and 20 minutes later, our makeshift dessert walked in through the back door in two Shopper’s plastic bags: black and white cookies, cut rainbow cake, and two flavors of pareve ice cream. Brilliant! The new dessert committee plated the dessert and, with a drizzle of chocolate syrup found in the fridge, voilà! Everything remained on schedule and no one knew the better.
* * *
Now that I think about it, I am amazed that this was the only faux pas among the four simultaneous simchas in which I was participating. I had been eager to offer my help to four close friends who were making children’s weddings within a span of 18 days: an aufruf shalosh seudos and a Sunday afternoon barbeque at my home, and a sheva brachos barbeque and Shabbos dinner held elsewhere. (Keeping the logistics of the two barbeques straight was the most confusing.) It was more likely than not that more things would go wrong. I was fortunate.
I felt a lot better after speaking to fellow master juggler, Gitty Horowitz, who told me about her gaffe: “One Friday night I showed up at the Maalot of Baltimore dormitory to have a seudas Shabbos with my husband and children and the Maalot girls, only to find that it was an out-Shabbos, and I wasn’t supposed to come until the following week,” recalls Mrs. Horowitz, who teaches at the seminary, and attends many of her students’ simchos. “So we went home and ate some food we were supposed to have for Shabbos lunch, and we just laughed through the whole meal. That was when I started writing everything down to make sure that I not only had the days right but also the dates, so I wouldn’t make that mistake again.”
* * *
Thinking that Mrs. Horowitz and I couldn’t be the only ones who had made an embarrassing mistake, I took a poll around town, asking, “Who hosts lots of simchos?” Two names came up repeatedly: Feigi Oberstein and Nechy Zehnwirth. For years, Mrs. Zehnwirth juggled numerous occasions in her home, but because the number of guests multiplied over the years, she now uses other facilities. When I asked her how many of the 30 to 50-plus person events she has juggled at once, she replied, “I almost don’t pay attention. I have no clue. I just enjoy hosting simchas and making them meaningful.”
Feigi Oberstein has hosting sheva brachos down to a science. She has made them for both Shabbos and weekday meals, as well as some non-conventional ones. One time, she created a Fourth of July theme, and the father of the bride brought along a red, white, and blue firework display! Mrs. Oberstein shared invaluable tips with me, some of which she learned long ago, the hard way – like when she left her husband in charge because she had to go to work, and he called her to say they were running out of food. After this experience, she touts the advantages of serving buffet style.
“I have the table set with the first course, like a salad, and the rest is served buffet style,” says Mrs. Oberstein. “The less serving, the easier it is, and everyone takes what they like. I have a floral print tablecloth and plates and glasses to serve 50 people. The fact that I own basic supplies makes it easier; I don’t have to spend money and time buying paper goods. It’s also very helpful to prepare what you can in advance. Salad dressings and ice cream desserts, for example, can be made ahead of time.”
Mrs. Oberstein thinks the most informal meals to be the most fun. “Milchigs go over big for a lot of people, too. Start with salad and salmon and some pasta. I like to have lots of salads, because people like them. An ice cream/toppings bar for dessert is a lot of fun.”
In the beginning, Mrs. Oberstein would keep a sheva brachos notebook with menu ideas. “I don’t need that any more,” the veteran sheva bracha hostess says. “It’s not such a big deal when you’ve done it so often.”
Mrs. Oberstein offers this advice: “Never refuse help from anyone, ever. People should make what they want and what they do best. Let everyone help and feel good about herself. People are well-meaning. If cooking or baking isn’t their forte, let them do something else, like getting the soda. It’s one less thing for you to do. Be flexible. The main thing is that everyone should have a good time. Making sheva brachos is really a pleasure. It’s fun to share in people’s simchas.”
* * *
Eleven years ago, Baltimoreans Rabbi Aryeh and Bracha Goetz were blessed to be able to juggle a few simchas at the same time in their own family. Their oldest son, Gavriel, and their second oldest daughter, Rochel, got engaged at the same time that their youngest son, Binyamin, was becoming a bar mitzva. Gavriel’s vort took place on Sunday afternoon, the day after the bar mitzva, and as the sun set and the vort was winding down, the Goetzes revealed to their guests that they had yet another simcha to announce: Rochel’s engagement!
“Everyone thought we were joking,” reminisces Mrs. Goetz. “It was cute that Rochel’s bedroom door was decorated with streamers saying, “It’s a boy!” and Gavriel’s door was decorated with ‘It’s a girl!” The best part of having the two weddings 13 days apart is that we all wore the same dresses, except for the two kallah, of course, who wore different gowns.
“When my daughter, Dina, was in seminary,” added Mrs. Goetz, “she asked for a bracha from Rabbi Reuven Feinstein and told him that she had two older siblings who weren’t married yet. He gave her a bracha that all three would be married in one
year – and that’s what happened, b”H! Note that he did not give a bracha with the clue that each of their zivugim would have the same first letter in their names, as they had!”
* * *
Rabbi Shlomo and Mrs. Robin Gottdiener had a similar multi-simcha experience over a period of a year and a half. Two weeks after their son Mendy’s bar mitzva, their daughter Rivka got married. Nine months later, their daughter Malkie got married. Two weeks after that, they celebrated their daughter, Shevy’s, bas mitzva.
Having learned from experience, Mrs. Gottdiener advises, “Even though details are important, don’t sweat the small stuff. Make a list of the things that you would like to do for your simcha and then be realistic. If you don’t get the shul or the hall or the caterer that you wanted, be flexible, no matter what. Reframe things. A lot depends on your attitude. If you enjoy your simcha, hopefully your guests will pick up on the vibes. The details aren’t as important to your guests as they are to you. Your friends just want to see that you are happy. Bottom line: Remember that it is a simcha. It is a gift from Hashem. Don’t be so worried over the details that you don’t enjoy it.”
Last year, after 37 years of living in Baltimore, the Gottdieners moved to Lakewood to enable them to participate in the continuing simchos, baruch Hashem, of their children and grandchildren, most of whom have relocated there.
“I was running from Baltimore to Lakewood on the average of once a month,” explains Mrs. Gottdiener, “for siddur or Chumash parties, a play, or a presentation. Even before I moved here, people knew me by name. In fact, I was traveling back and forth so often that the shopkeepers never realized I was from out of town!”
* * *
For Rabbi Dovid Heber, Rav of Khal Ahavas Yisroel Tzemach Tzedek, it is par for the course to go from one simcha to another. Like fellow members of the rabbinate, he often goes not only from simcha to simcha but from a simcha to a house of mourning in a single day.
“At such times, when I have to go from a bais avel (shiva house) to a bais mishteh (party),” says Rabbi Hever, “I am reminded of a vort told at the levaya (funeral) of my renowned cousin, Rebbetzin Paula Rivkin, wife of Harav Sholom Rivkin, zt”l, chief rabbi of St. Louis, by Rabbi Menachem Greenblatt, Rav of Agudath Israel of St. Louis. Rabbi Greenblatt said, ‘The gemara says that at kriyas yom suf (the splitting of the Red Sea), when Israel crossed over the sea, the malachim (angels) wanted to sing Shira (a song of praise) before the Ribono Shel Olam (G-d), but He would not let them. He said, my creatures drowned and you are saying Shira before me? Yet we find in Parshas Beshalach that both Moshe with Klal Yisrael and Miriam with the women did say Shira. Rabbi Elya Meir Bloch answers, “In Shamayim the tone was one of sorrow, due to the drowning of the Mitzrim (Egyptians) – and that could be the only mood at that time, so the melachim could not say Shira. However, human beings can begin the day at a bris, then go to a levaya, a wedding, and a shiva house, all in one day. The fact that Hashem drowned his creatures, requiring a period of mourning, is not a contradiction to saying Shira immediately after. That is what people do. It’s an emotional roller coaster.”’”
ã Margie Pensak-2014
