Spin The Bottle
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Under no circumstances should children ever be left alone, overnight, together, in a synagogue. I feel like I’ve just described the worst-possible remake of Now and Then but what I’m really talking about are “lock-ins” that I attended from my pre-teen to early teen years. In my youth specifically, adults were still under the impression that nice little Jewish kids actually should be placed in romantically exploratory situations, mostly unsupervised, to promote the chance that they sort themselves into pairs eventually get married and make more Jews. Mazel Tov.
Today, the concept of a lock-in is, I hope, something left to period piece television shows where kids ask their parents if stuff like that actually happened. While lock-ins were almost entirely physically harmless if you don’t count the fact that twelve and thirteen year olds really don’t need to stay awake until two in the morning, the emotional trauma cannot be understated. Friends, readers, colleagues…I’m talking about Spin The Bottle.