There is no day in school more exciting for kids than days when there’s a class party. Everyone gives out candy and you sing songs and you sometimes push the desks out of the way and then the teacher says, “Party’s over! Time for lunch!” and then you come home with a bag that is every kind of nosh with no wrappers sharing flavors at the bottom of your knapsack.
Because which kid is bringing bags for everyone?
“What are you bringing to the party?”
“Bags.”
That is a parent’s dream.
So for most kids, it ends up at the bottom of whatever package the nosh they brought came in. So if you brought pretzels, for example, then at the bottom, in the salt, you have pretzels, popcorn, potato chips, licorice, jelly beans, and about a half a cup of soda.
As a parent, meanwhile, you don’t always get a lot of advance notice about the parties. It seems like the teacher suddenly realized, with no warning, that they finished a unit or a perek or a mesechta, and he totally didn’t see it coming, and now, the very next day, there has to be a siyum, because, similar to siyums in the 9 Days, this is their heter to have non-healthy foods in a school that otherwise only allows healthy snacks.
“Should we just have meat?”
“What? No, we’re five!”
But some rebbeim, it seems, kind of just put a siyum whenever they feel like it.
“Okay, we finished the passuk.”
“Okay, we finished the Gemara’s kasha.”
“Okay, we got up to Daf Beis.”
You can make a siyum literally whenever you want. Nobody checks.
And as a parent of a kid having a party, you get just about as much warning. I remember once when I was in first or second grade, there was some talk in my afternoon class that there was going to be a party the next day. So I told my father that night, after I was in pajamas, and he drove me to the store in the morning to buy like 30 lollies. And because of that, I missed the bus and he had to drive me to school. And I got to school with my lollies, and all the other kids were like, “There’s no party today.” Which, even if they were wrong technically, if they hadn’t brought candy, there was no party. I don’t know if the teacher had been toying with the idea of making a party, or if I misheard, or what. Either way, I thought, I don’t want my father to be mad that he had to run out to the store. So I made it my mission to finish all the lollies over the course of the day so I wouldn’t come home with them and upset my father. Anyway, it turns out, he got upset that I ate all the lollies. What did he want?!
And it had really come down to the wire, because it takes a long time to eat 30 lollies. In the end I was biting through them, giving them out to friends, kids on the bus… I think it’s possible that my father saw everyone on the bus sucking a lolly when I got off.
But anyway, not all parties are about buying nosh in a panic. The parties evolve. As the kids get older, they want something a little healthier than nosh. So they have pizza. If anything, though, it’s the little kids that should have pizza, because the teacher can give out half slices at a time, and also little kids don’t need 24 separate types of candy in one day. That they’re going to try to finish before they get home.
But this way, at least, the kids come home with a note asking for money. Though the note is a new thing; when I was in school, there was no note. You had to trust that your kid heard the teacher right.
If you’re a teacher, though -- especially a Limudei Chol teacher in a mesivta -- you get an entirely different perspective on parties. In fact, I dread that last week of school. Not least because I have student after student coming over to me and saying, “How can I possibly be failing? I haven’t handed anything in!”
But they want a party too.
For what? I haven’t finished my curriculum. You made sure of that. I also haven’t finished grading your essays yet and won’t be finished until sometime after everyone hands it in, which is the last day, if that. What are we celebrating? Shouldn’t you be using this last week to be working on the makeup work you need to give me? You can’t even concentrate on the days that it’s just people bringing in snacks! That’s why you’re behind! Can’t you just do the homework during my class and then eat pizza on your own time?
“Then it will be homework! I don’t do homework!”
What are we celebrating? The fact that we don’t have to see each other anymore, for two months until you have me next year? I think the summer vacation is a celebration of that. Do we need to celebrate with food? Every day of class you guys celebrate with food. At any point during the year, one kid is eating pizza, another kid is eating sushi, and another kid is grilling something. What’s left?
Not to mention that I know for a fact that whatever food I bring in will be complained about by half the students. I’m here right before supper, and I can say that there is not one day that nobody says, “Uch.”
And they’re like, “But the math teacher brought in pizza!” Yeah, the non-Jewish math teacher, who almost definitely offered it before he knew how much kosher pizza costs. And then only afterwards did he do the math.
Just one year I want them to tell me ahead of time when he’s bringing in pizza, and then right before his period, I’m going to bring in steak. He will never buy them pizza again. Problem solved.
Until he starts bringing in wraps.
And he thought pizza was expensive.
Also, what even is the end of the year? My students don’t want to teach anything after Pesach because “it’s the end of the year”. For my students, it’s always sof zman. After Shavuos is sof zman, after Pesach is sof zman, after Purim is sof winter zman, and also any day in which there is a sof zman Kriyas Shema…
They love the end of the year, so they keep creating it where they can. If I buckled to that, it would always be the end of the year:
- May and June are the end of the school year.
- There’s no yeshiva in April, of course.
- Shevat and Adar are the end of the Jewish year.
- Cheshvan and Kislev are the end of the secular year.
- Teves and the first half of Shevat are the end of the year for trees.
- There’s no yeshiva in Tishrei.
- Elul, which you think is the beginning of the year, is also actually the end of the year.
- So when are we learning?
I may be exaggerating, but only a little. I kind of feel like they’ve been finding excuses to join hands and sing in my class since Mishenichnas Adar. But it’s just excuses. If we’d have yeshiva in Av, they’d join hands and sing, “Mishe-mishe-mishenichnas Av, Memaatin memaatin memaatin b’simcha!”
And then they’d ask for pizza parties.
Or hey, maybe I should bring in the mishloach manos everyone gave me that year! Supplemented with the money from my Chanukah tips!
Technically, that’s what I already do.
If they want a party and I don’t want to provide it, maybe we should do what they do in elementary school – each student should bring in some kind of nosh for everyone. But they will not. These are kids who can’t remember to bring a pen to class.
On the other hand, though, a lot of them already bring food every day, usually enough for everyone. That’s why they’re not supposed to eat in class. On the other hand, maybe because of that they’re out of food by the end of the year. That’s why they want my food. On the other hand, it’s a mesivta. There’s always something around. Basically, half the class would bring in a box of yeshiva cereal from that morning. One kid would show up with milk, one would bring some butter that’s been out since the morning, one kid would show up with ketchup… Just ketchup.
Alternatively, I can do what they do in junior high and ask everyone for money so I can run to the pizza shop, but my students don’t have any money because they’ve all spent it on pizza on the days that the food was uch. And half the bochurim don’t go home every night, and half the ones who do will forget to bring money anyway. And if I give them a paper reminding them, they’ll forget to bring that home… And then everyone who does show up with money from home will take one look at that day’s lunch and buy themselves pizza. They’re not waiting around until 4:30 for this. By the time my period rolls around, no one will have a dime.
Is that all they need from me – an official note asking their parents to send extra money for that day’s lunch? Because that I’m willing to give.
But what I’m not willing to do is be the only one bringing in food for the party. I already did that once, in first grade.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
