Most people's Thanksgivings are dominated by things like turkey, football and relaxation. For me, this past weekend involved broken glass, a photographer taking compromising pictures of me and 24 dancing rabbis. This was all thanks to my brother's wedding on Sunday. But through all the craziness, everything went great and the Earth hasn't yet opened up and swallowed us.
There were few doubts about the marriage itself. My sister-in-law is kind, intelligent, beautiful and magnificently cool. And for the past year, I've gotten to see her bring out the best in my brother. But she's also a rabbi at a large synagogue, which is great, but meant that the wedding would be very large and packed with members of the Jewish community. This meant that my very high-strung family had to be on its best behavior. Not a safe bet.
The trickiest part of the day was early on, during pictures. For some reason, the photographer thought my brothers and I should be touching each other during our poses. Don't get me wrong-we touch each other all the time. But normally, it's hugging or shaking hands, not holding each other's inner thighs like the photographer wanted. For about an hour, we sat there being told, \Move your hand over on your brother's leg! Squeeze tighter! Now smile and
look natural!""
But in spite of the day's odd start, everything became remarkably relaxed. It turns out that New York's Jewish community is a bit like the video for ""Beat It"" by Michael Jackson. No matter what divisions there may be or what weird traditions and personalities you might encounter, it all goes away as soon as you get everyone on the dance floor.
The night's biggest temptation for anyone to be bad was when my other brother and I toasted the bride and groom. Originally, we wanted to do it Friar's Club style, going around the room and roasting everyone. Then we wanted to sing ""Hey Ya"" by Outkast, until we realized it was a bad idea to tell 24 rabbis and all of our cousins to ""shake it like a Polaroid."" My toast almost really went wrong because my voice was shot, and thanks to my friend Joe, the only complete sentence I can say in sign language is ""I bathe Nixon
in milkshakes.""
But in the end, we behaved ourselves and happiness prevailed. My brother and his new wife were overjoyed, my parents floated in a happy daze the whole evening and my brother's nuclear physicist friend regaled me with stories of Dr. WAFT, the government's dumbest nuke expert. I also developed a crush on the woman who was there to coordinate the women's dresses and makeup. Aside from being great at her job, she rescued me from a conversation with some bizarre Scandinavian woman I had never met.
But the best part of the weekend for me was being with my brothers. When I was a little kid and we didn't always get along, I used to daydream about how things would be when the three of us were older and our age differences became meaningless. This weekend, as we hugged and toasted and reminisced, I felt like we had actually made it to that point after all these years. As my brother the groom walked down the aisle, escorted by my parents, my other brother leaned over to me and said, ""Look at him. That's my brother, God damnit.""
I almost cried my eyes out, even though it was a quote from the movie ""Backdraft."" The whole night was transcendentally happy. One of the Posner boys is married and the other two of us have a great new sister.
The only scary thing is when people kept asking which one of us would be next to get married and everyone responded that it would be me. Now that's when the Earth will open up and swallow us.
amosap@hotmail.com.
