My wife’s friend invited us to a sheva brachos for her newly-married grandson. She added that I would be the panim chadash (new face). This means that I would be the only man at the sheva brachos that wasn’t at the wedding.
My wife’s friend is a very nice lady who lives near us in Lakewood and the only thing I knew about her was that she used to live in Monsey, her husband passed away many years ago and she raised the kids by herself. When she had visitors on Shabbos, the men wore shtreimels.
I had second thoughts about going to the sheva brachos as our head coverings didn’t match and figured our interests wouldn’t either. I had thoughts of how bored I would be and what time it would be over. It was called for 7:30 and we arrived five minutes late and were the first ones there.
The location was a restaurant that owned a party hall a couple of doors down. We opened the door and entered a small hall with a small coatroom and a bigger and nicer men’s restroom than I expected. My wife gave the ladies room good marks, too. Three doors were opposite the entrance door. Each had the names of the party hosts. That night the three rooms would have sheva brachos and all would have the same seating and table arrangements.
Each long room was divided by a long mechitza which was so high that it reminded me of the left field wall in Boston’s Fenway Park. Each side of the mechitza had a long table with eleven chairs on each side of the table. The 22 seats on the men’s side and the 22 on the ladies side were all filled by the second inning of the sheva brachos which started 37 minutes after the 7:30 time we were told it would start.
I sat at the first seat closest to the entrance so I had no one to the left of me to converse with. Any conversation would have to be with the one to the right of me and opposite of me. Both were grandsons of the lady who invited us. Both, I’d guess, were in their 30s and both were not wearing shtreimels as most men were. One shtreimel was the tallest that I ever saw. The thought of getting one for me ran through my mind as it would make me a foot taller.
The chosson and kallah arrived at 8:57. He was tall and nice looking, wearing a nice, black chassidishe outfit with a not too tall shtreimel and a good-looking beard. The kallah fit the chosson well, as both wore great smiles and she received a great reception from the ladies side. Five minutes after their arrival at 9:02, the first speaker spoke in English for six minutes. I expected six speakers, but there was only one more, also in English, and that was at 9:29 and lasted for eight minutes.
I didn’t expect much conversation with the one next to me or across from me as we didn’t know each other. I broke the ice and introduced myself a few minutes after they arrived. In the course of conversation, he asked what I did for a living. “Hashem put me in the baseball field,” I responded, and that led to a few minutes of questions about what my job was and some of my duties.
They were the only two men I spoke to mostly due to the seating arrangement. They spoke to each other more than me but that was expected as they were either brothers or brothers-in-law. I wasn’t bored as I cut out articles from The Jewish Press to read while waiting for appointments or at simchas. After all, my table neighbors spent a lot of time playing with their phones.
We arrived home three hours and 15 minutes after we arrived for the sheva brachos for the new couple.
Now that we’re into a new baseball season, itβs almost time for my predictions.
