Awhile back I wrote about what I thought to be the Jewish Walk of Shame. I felt that getting up late on shabbos morning and walking to shull while all the women were walking was quite embarrassing allowing them to size you up and mutter that you were not worthy of a shidduch they had thought of all the while you hang your head in shame while to walk fast past the million stroller march that happens every shabbos at around 10:30am.
I was thinking of other especially embarrassing moments in the frum world and came up with two of them. The two I came up with were the a couples first sheva brachos after the wedding and walking into a shull late that you have never been to that keeps the sidurim all the way in the front. These two I have decided to be horribly embarrassing.
So you woke up late because frankly the family you are staying at leaves quite early and maybe the women of the house didn’t want to walk in on some morning wood of their single male guest, or maybe its yichud, whatever it may be you have just had to compete with hundreds of strollers and women wearing lampshades for a piece of sidewalk as you tried to avoid their prying eyes wondering if you were late or coming back from a hashkama minyan. Maybe it depends on what style yarmulke I was wearing, a black velvet on the middle of the head may signify a hashkama minyan attendee while a suede or nit yarmulke may give away the fact that I really just woke up 2 hours late, well they were looking with disgust as I hurriedly walked with a quick power walk providing a gentle breeze for the women as they waddled ahead slowly pushing their strollers and talking of the latest recipe from kosher by design. So its shame full walking late to shull but nothing can compare oneself for the dread and embarrassment that one feels upon entering a bais midrash or shull that keeps its siddurim in the front and that has no available seats. There is always the hope of the good Samaritan who senses my dread to come hobbling along with a siddur and chumash in hand while directing me to an empty seat right in the front row. It is even worse if your in one of those shulls where everyone wears a hat and a white shirt, I do not own any white shirts, I never have my dad always said they get dirty faster and its true. So I stand just outside the door drawing out my plan of attack, a slow steady eyes straight ahead walk, or the self confident I don’t care if 200 black hatters are staring at me because I am wearing a white suit with a purple shirt and I stick out like a redneck at a PETA rally. Or will I try and scrounge around the tables in back for the leftover siddur from some Kiddush club attendees or some kids who left for laining. As I ponder these tactics I have to stand in the back to the dismay of the folks who always feel everyone should have a seat and constantly usher you to the front rows where if you do decide to leave you will have to do so facing the whole shull, kind of like birchas kohanim with everyone looking at you to see if you mess up.
It’s the couples first day together and most want to be left alone to enjoy each others company and body parts but we Jews have to cause them utmost embarrassment by forcing them to come out from under their covers and have a meal every night for a week with a bunch of family or people that didn’t make it to the wedding. Fine and dandy excepting the first one after the wedding. The nervous couple comes in nervous knowing that every single person at the table is wondering how it went the previous night, one pump chump or two hour powerhouse, whatever their thoughts may be, I certainly would be analyzing the couples every move to see if I could tell how they enjoyed their wedding night. YOU SICKO many of my readers may be thinking, but really I am just the first to admit that besides the outdoors, making fun of frummies, and useless information I think about peoples wedding nights and yichud rooms, it’s a fascinating subject and on a recent date I even spoke about it at length and my date who was rather cool admitted to feeling the exact same way. Its not just talking about sex, because that’s normal, its wedding sex which for a bunch of awkward shomer negia Chasidim who have no idea where the pieces of the puzzle go before marriage, makes for some interesting analyzing of the theories of bed sheets and so on.
So these are my two embarrassing situations for Jews, if have anymore that are comical in nature, please drop me a comment and I shall write about them.
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