In the world in which we live, opposites abound. For example, day has night, dark has light, width has height, weak has might, loose has tight and wrong has right. Obviously, opposites are not relegated to the secular world and there are plenty of opposites that are specific to the Jewish world. For instance, bread has chametz, milchig has fleishig, mazel has tsuris, menschy has chutzpadik and kosher has treif. In the Jewish world, however, there are some things for which no opposite exists.

You can find umpteen Ashkenazic shuls which have a Sephardic minyan but, in terms of opposites, you would be hard-pressed to find a Sephardic shul with an Ashkenazic minyan. Of course, there are other differences between an Ashkenazic and Sephardic synagogue including the nusach (Ashkenaz vs. Sefard), Torah placement during Torah reading (horizontal vs. vertical) and kiddush (herring, kugel and cholent vs. baba ghanoush, shavfka and tagine).

You can easily find non-kosher supermarkets with a kosher section but, when it comes to opposites, you will not find a kosher supermarket with a non-kosher section. That said, non-kosher and kosher supermarkets differ in other ways. Non-kosher supermarkets tend to strictly enforce the “10 items or less” rule at checkout. At kosher supermarkets, “10 items or less” is more of a recommendation and certainly will not stop an uber chutzpadik shopper who clearly has more than 10 items but, as usual, is in a mega hurry that trumps all other concerns.

You can find many shuls in which children are brought into the adult minyan to lead the very end of davening. Good luck, however, finding any shuls in which adults are brought into junior congregation to lead the end of davening. The differences between an adult minyan and junior congregation do not end there. The dress code often is looser in the more casual junior congregation while the lips often are looser in the more talkative adult minyan.

In most shuls with an official chazzan on the payroll, sometimes the rabbi will daven. In contrast, in most shuls with a pulpit rabbi, rarely does the chazzan deliver a sermon. The roles of a rabbi and chazzan differ in other respects. The rabbi must deliver sermons that are always sharp and never flat while the chazzan must always sing notes, some sharp and some flat.

To be fair, the roles of a rabbi and chazzan do have some similarities. The rabbi, as a supervisor, must read his staff whereas the chazzan, when practicing with sheet music, must read the staff. The rabbi, for the sake of social harmony, wants congregants singing the same tune, figuratively speaking, and the chazzan, for the sake of musical harmony, wants congregants singing the same tune, literally speaking. (As an aside, when an aspiring chazzan is in cantorial school and is too lazy to read the full version of sheet music, what will he do? He will cheat by simply reading the “Clefs” Notes version.)

In most shuls, the rabbi’s wife has an official title but the chazzan’s wife does not. This differs from the American political framework which refers to the President’s wife as the First Lady and the Vice President’s wife as the Second Lady. In contrast, in the clergical framework, the rabbi’s wife is the rebbetzin but the chazzan’s wife is not referred to as the “chazzetzin.” Of course, there are other differences between the rabbi’s wife and the chazzan’s wife. Whether fair or not, the rabbi’s wife usually is expected to be active in shul activities whereas the chazzan’s wife has a far better chance of avoiding such unpaid responsibility.

There are other instances in the Jewish world where the opposite either does not exist at all or is relatively rare. Yeshiva students in America often take gap years in Israel but Israeli yeshiva students do not often take gap years in America. Some kosher burger joints offer burgers with fake cheese but few if any kosher pizza parlors offer pizza with fake pepperoni. Jewish law requires Jews to sit in a sukkah but it does not require non-Jews to stand outside of a sukkah.

In certain situations, it is a good thing that there is no opposite. For example, no sane Jew would want to celebrate the opposite of Simchat Torah. Likewise, no sane Jew would greet someone with the opposite of “shabbat shalom.” No sane Jew would train to be the opposite of a shadchan (matchmaker), unless they receive a commission from a law firm specializing in divorce.

Final thought: Why did the bear from Antarctica avoid a relationship with a bear from the Arctic Circle? They were polar opposites.

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By Jon Kranz