I spend much of my time writing in Swirl, an awesome coffee shop in my hometown. It’s a kosher place, though the clientele is pretty mixed.
One thing I hear a lot of, though, is Jewish banter along the lines of …
David’s Bar Mitzvah’s in two weeks.
That’s wonderful.
They’re having the ceremony at a synagogue.
Mazel Tov to his family.
Yes, Mazel Tov.
I heard the new cantor is wonderful.
So wonderful.
That’s lovely.
Beautiful voice.
Just beautiful.
I’m probably not going to explain this well. But, having grown up in an extremely non-Jewish world, I struggle with the banter of my people. It often strikes me as pretty … banal. Or, to be more precise, flat. The next holiday. The new rabbi. Joseph and Sarah had a baby. On and on—repeating, repeating, repeating. The bagels at Saul’s are so delicious. Yes, they really are. But the poppy give me gas. Oh, that’s not so great. I could travel into space, return 50 years from now and almost certainly hear the same stuff.
Of course, this is (admittedly) a dickish part of me. What’s so interesting about my life? What makes me any better? If it’s important to the folks sitting at the adjacent table, who am I to judge?
Answer: No one.
But I can’t help myself.
