The hassidic loking guy had a big bushy beard and an entire bottle of wine on his head while he appeared to be dancing.

I was confused.

I pointed to the photo and asked one of my more observant friends, “what the hell is that rabbi doing with the wine on his head?”

“Oh! It must be a wedding photo.”

That didn’t explain much.

“In a wedding, people do shtick.”

“Oh… right… of course. The shtick.” I was fourteen at the time and didn’t want to appear as clueless as I actually was regarding the specifics of my own religion. I feigned competence in the topic, and the conversation moved on. At the time, I thought “shtick” was only something stand up comedians did, and I didn’t really care about weddings.

Now, I care.

Apparently we have a tradition of dancing with bottles of winde during our heads during wedding receptions. AWESOME! It’s a good deed to make the bride happy on her wedding day, and obviously everybody wants to participate in making the bride happy… I’m not going to ponder this too deeply. Happy is good.

  “Wedding shtick,” from what I gather, is a thing where the couple’s friends and family do ridiculous things to entertain them for a while during the reception. This shtick can be anything, from magic tricks to jokes to dancing with wine on one’s head. Stand up comedians get “shtick” from weddings–though if anyone in my family tries to get up and drunkenly do some kind of stand up act, someone PLEASE stop them.

I don’t know about the “shtick” in our wedding. We’re planning these shenanagins ourselves, and we didn’t really count on having shtick. Does anyone want to volunteer for dancing with wine on your head? Otherwise we might just have to settle for the firespinning.

 

Lag B Blog, day 9!

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