Planning any kind of simcha – be it a wedding, bar mitzvah, bris, Kkddush, sheva brachos, pidyon haben, etc. – comes along with extensive planning, organizing, and prioritizing. Should the tablecloths be blue or silver? Orchids or lilies? A three-piece band or eight? A hall for 50 or 100? 200 or 400? The photographer who gives an album, or the one who just gives the proofs? The grander the simcha, the more intense the headaches for the baalei simcha.

In the past two decades, as simchos have swelled to credit-busting proportions, community leaders and rabbanim have been exerting pressure to keep simcha celebrations to a minimum, without unnecessary grandeur and luxury. So much focus has been placed on prices, decibels, and cutoff hours that we have been unanimously neglecting to focus on the behavior and chinuch (education) of the smallest participants in the simcha: the children.