Tea Neck, NEW JERSEY—With far-ranging repercussions for Jews and Jewish culture everywhere, a new study was released today confirming a strong, “statistically significant” linkage between nahchus and tsorris. The study, commissioned by the Shpilchaus Society, followed nearly 1,000 Jewish parents, making it the most exhaustive of its kind.
While many Jews have long postulated that nahchus and tsorris—the irreducible filial emotions of pride and sorrow, respectively—stem from the same biological source, no scientific survey has ever been able to quantify the claims so pointedly. As for the linkage, Benjamin Shmeerson, head researcher for the Shpilchaus Society, put it bluntly: “It’s the kids, and also the grandkids.”
Shmeerson also acknowledged that the various factions of Jewish science would no doubt have much to say, and much to challenge, about the report. Yet, he said, “Numbers is numbers.”
The debate seems particularly contentious on the tsorris side. Purists, known to Jewish research circles as Kvetchers, argue that tsorris is generated by any number of daily ailments and sadnesses—from pogroms to lousy counter service at the Bagel Bin. To conclude that tsorris is solely biologically determined by one’s filial offspring, they argue, is “missing the entire point of Judaism and Jewish life—being able to bitch about anything and everything, no holds barred.” This according to Kvetcher spokesman Marty Finkel.
Yet their opposing theorists, known as Mishbocha-ists, argue that when it comes right down to it, Jews savor child-related tsorris so much more than everyday tsorris. “It’s like a different animal altogether,” claims Mishbocha-ist Calvin Olen. “Some of these babushkas and their kids, it’s like a fine wine to them—they’d store their tsorris in humidity controlled cellars if they could.”
Both groups agree, however, that only kids can give you nahchus. “What are you gonna, get some nahchus from your dog who goes poop like he should?” said Finkel. “Or what, a nice piece of fish? Stop it now, it’s silly.”
As for the study itself, which was juried by a panel of rabbis and also machers who think they could be rabbis with as much as they talk like they went to Talmud Torah with God himself, the key finding resides in the number of instances of tsorris and nahchus when held constant for the number of children, attitude of those children, and levels of education also of the children. “Let’s not forget how often the children go to shul and whether they do d-r-u-g-s,” added the report. “Of course, it goes without saying, we factored in the whole goy-marriage thing.”
However, as many statistics experts have pointed out, causality is another matter altogether. “Whether nahchus systematically leads to tsorris is unclear,” said Shmeerson, “though it’s hard to imagine tsorris leading to nahchus.” Asked to explain, Shmeerson pointed to one Minnesota family in the study, where the son had been caught shoplifting at age 12, and even though the son went on to be a prominent physician with a thriving practice, he was always known not for saving lives and infusing an entire community with health and wellbeing, God forbid, but for that one time his mother received a phone call from the St. Louis Park Police Department and the shame, oy the shame...like skin cancer on her forehead it was.
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Copyright © 2008 Newsmaker News.
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