Do you ever feel like you just don’t get it? No matter what, it just doesn’t make sense. You try and then you try a bit harder and every time you think that maybe, just maybe you got it, it just slips away from you like a helium-filled balloon on its way to greener pastures.
As a madricha in an American seminary in Israel, part of my job description is organizing and making extra-curricular activities, informal gatherings that generally take place in the lounge attached to my dorm room. Tonight was such a night. My co-madrichot and I organized a fun “food and games” type evening, complete with different types of popcorn (spicy, caramelized, salted) and fun thinking games,such as “Bananagrams” and “Mad Gab”.
As the girls made their way and drifted into the lounge after slichot, we were ready to begin. We had it all planned out. Well, at least we thought we did. One of the girls suddenly gasped and said loudly “deep, but not profound”. All of the sudden we were attacked by all sides with these strange analogy type sentences “button but not snap;” “green but not red;” “took but not take.” It was spreading like wildfire but we had no idea what was going on.
If you can’t beat ’em, join, right? So that’s what we tried to do. “Page but not paper,” I threw out. Nope, not right. “Black but not
white” was another attempt. Wrong again. Over and over, we madrichot tried to throw out these weird analogies so as not to be left out in the dust.
Finally our girls took (but not take) pity on us and started giving us clues. “Spelling but not words” she told us slyly. Another one tried “But-t-t-ton but not Snap.” “Gre-e-e-en but not blue,” bo-o-o-ok but not novel.” the pieces were beginning to fit. “Teeth, but not tongue?” I tried. “Yes!!” they shouted. Finally this deep yet not profound game made sense. The first word of the “analogy” (I can’t think of any other word to describe it) had a double letter. The second did not.
It seems funny (but not dumb) that something so silly (but not stupid) drove us so crazy (but not annoyed). I guess sometimes we tend to overthink things, when really they are in fact not so deep, or profound.
