More Conversations From the Rabbis' Table

This week's conversation took place at one of the local kosher restaurants. Sean & I stopped in to pick up some lunch for the airport.  We were headed out there to spend the afternoon with a friend on a stopover from Baltimore to Israel (via Chicago and Toronto). Ben & Izzy's Deli www.benandizzys.com, doesn't have an extensive menu, but what is there is excellent.  We had pastrami (made in store) for lunch, and took the kids back for dinner.  (BTW, beyond great food, they were friendly and fun to talk to, eager to share samples, and open to menu suggestions.) We were headed down to the Princess of Wales Theatre to see Les Miserables (more on that later). Somehow we ended up playing word association. You might think word association with two teens and one pre-teen would get pretty silly. You'd be right. Words like annoying or goofy led to the naming of siblings. But somehow we also worked in Greek mythology and plays, specifically Oedipus and Antigone, Shakespeare, the person, his plays, his language and the Globe Theatre, Poetry, Science, Talmud, holidays, Hebrew, Time (as in Einstein's concepts of), colors, sports, seasons, weather, Star Wars, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Dr. Who, and around again in a circle.

Winter became snow, which became white, then black, then Dalek Sec (Dr. Who), which led to a whole series of Whovian concepts. This led to dream then to mid-summer's night to Puck to hockey to stick to tree to leaf to fall to winter.  I may have missed a few steps, but that's just one line of thought.

I am amazed how much information is stored in their brains. They all read voraciously, and love fiction and non-fiction. They devourer Horrible Histories (worth checking out- it's history with the messy bits left in), which also teaches Greek and Roman mythology, Greek drama, Shakespeare. We talked about Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus (although we couldn't remember this play's name- only that it was also Oedipus something), and Antigone. They know all Shakespeare's plays, and would drop everything to see any one of them. They speak intelligently about Talmudic concepts that would stump a PhD student, as well as the setting and architecture of the Globe Theatre.

All this while eating chicken soup, a steak sandwich (I had the chicken club), and fries. If Ben & Izzy's can inspire such great dinner conversation, we need to go back.