A soporific story of moderate coincidence

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  • #618732

    In the story below, I possibly find out the identity of a coffee room poster, but I may be wrong, since it is based mainly on instinct. Also, it really doesn’t matter one way or the other whether I have the correct identity. So if you are looking for a post with exciting content and an incredible twist that changes everything, I suggest you look elsewhere.

    There is a poster on this board, whom I shall refer to as Poster X. Based on things Poster X has posted, and assuming the posts are accurate, I know maybe three facts (give or take) about Poster X’s real life. Individually, these facts can be referred to as Fact 1, Fact 2, and Fact 3.

    This Friday night, I was eating the seudah at the house of “Rabbi Moshe Goldstein”, a relative who lives nearby. The conversation turned to Rabbi Goldstein’s experience in a particular yeshiva. Rabbi Goldstein wanted to show me something relating to his yeshiva, so he went to get his yearbook.

    It bears mentioning that I am a world class aficionado of Jewish geography. Of course, a slightly aged yearbook is a treat to anyone who ever indulges in Jewish geography, but to me it is like Swiss chocolate with a heavy sprinkling of cocaine. I leafed through the book, and began to notice many people with whom I am directly or indirectly acquainted. So I would say things to Rabbi Goldstein, like, “Chananya Winkelman – is that the same Winkelman who learned in Brisk for a few years and then went to Chicago Law School?” or “Dovid Bergmann – is that the one whose father is a butcher in Williamsburg?”

    One page did not appear to contain anyone I knew, after a quick scan. As I turned to the next one, Rabbi Goldstein said, “that was ‘Gedaliah Feldman’. He is <Fact 1>.” That was a random thing to point out, because Fact 1 is not particularly common but it is also not particularly noteworthy. There are maybe 15,000 people about whom Fact 1 is true, but more like 50 people if you limit it to people of that age who are part of the same community as me, Rabbi Goldstein, and the Coffee Room. This set off a tickler in my brain.

    So I asked Rabbi Goldstein, “Is Gedaliah Feldman by any chance <Fact 2>?” He replied in the affirmative. This was a little too coincidental. So I asked further, “Is Gedaliah Feldman perhaps <Fact 3> as well? Again, Rabbi Goldstein confirmed that he is.

    Since I now knew three things about Gedaliah Feldman and those three attributes correspond to the three things I know about Poster X, I concluded that Gedaliah Feldman is Poster X.

    However, I now must add a caveat: Immediately after Shabbos, I called my close friend “Poster Y”, who, like all posters on the Coffee Room, a 3L at Columbia Law School. I told him my conclusion regarding the identity of Poster X as Gedaliah Feldman. He reminded me that Poster X had also mentioned Fact 4 about himself, and Fact 4 directly contradicted something we know to be true of Gedaliah Feldman.

    That is the end of the story. I hope that if earlier you had nothing better to do, something more productive has come up since you began reading. To summarize everything to this point, I had clearly identified Poster X as Gedaliah Feldman after seeing the name in a yeshiva yearbook and hearing some random facts about him from a former classmate. However, later information has cast some doubt on this conclusion.

    *All names have been changed, except for that of the author.

    #1195969
    yehudayona
    Participant

    So Veltz Meshugener is your real name?

    #1195970
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Who is the author?

    #1195971
    CTLAWYER
    Participant

    Veltz Mshugener…..

    “all posters on the Coffee Room, a 3L at Columbia Law School.”

    Really, you must miss most posts, especially those looking for a post high school seminary.

    This retirement age attorney hasn’t been a 3L in about 40 years and went to a different Ivy, not Columbia.

    #1195972
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    What is a 3L?

    #1195973
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    I didn’t go to Columbia Law School, but someone in my immediate family did. Does that qualify? (even if I have no idea what a 3L is)

    #1195974

    Interestingly, Fact 4, which calls my conclusion into question, was that the person I think I have identified cannot possibly be a Columbia 3L because he did not go to Columbia Law School. He did go to another prestigious school, which is located in Philadelphia (not Penn Law School, though).

    #1195975
    golfer
    Participant

    CTL, I think when Veltz wrote the sentence you quoted he had been hit by a wave of nostalgia for the old days of the CR.

    When I stumbled in here almost accidentally, the girls chattering away were mainly on seminary threads. Besides those high school girls terror-stricken by the prospect of a year of academic pursuits, the only other females who consistently posted were a wise grandmother offering encouragement and counsel, an English academician from Haifa checking grammar and spelling (it soon became evident those were not the type of faux pas the Mods were keeping an eye out for), an accomplished balabusta who shared recipes (since she disappeared we get recipes for frozen cholent pops and the like), and yours truly.

    The CR, like everything else in life, has changed. I would add the axiom we all know about things saying the same the more they change, but in our case it is untrue.

    As we can see from the puzzlement of out fellow posters, CTL & LU, Veltz’s assertion is no longer accurate. Although his use of the word soporific is.

    #1195976
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    🙁

    #1195978
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Golfer – so it used to be that everyone here had gone to Columbia Law School??!!

    #1195979
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    I still don’t know what a 3L is.

    #1195980
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    and Velt, I thought it was a fascinating series of events, I love mysteries (although the unsolvable ones are highly annoying) and I am actually mildly curious about whether or not you are correct

    #1195981
    CTLAWYER
    Participant

    3L

    3rd year law student

    Follows

    Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior years of College in most cases.

    Some law schools have switched to a 2 year curricula.

    My children did two years plus summers, or 5 semesters and one summer

    #1195982
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Thank you CL for answering my question.

    Wow! Law school in 2 years! That must be intense! I heard Law school is intense as it is.

    Ok, so I guess it was a joke, since obviously not everyone here is a third year law school student. So is the point that that is the type of conversations people used to have? How long ago was that? The type of past conversations people make references to or that I’ve seen don’t sound like that.

    #1195983
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Everyone keeps talking about the good-old-days, but no one explains what they were about.

    According to LF, no one was serious; according to this thread, everyone was a third year law school student?? I’m missing something. What did things used to be like?

    #1195984

    I am not talking about any “good old days”. My point is that all the people asking about which seminary to go to are 3Ls at Columbia Law School trying to present themselves the way they think bais Yaakov girls would.

    #1195985
    golfer
    Participant

    Lilmod, you didn’t hear me say anything about the “good old days”.

    More like “the different old days” if you read me correctly.

    People can fear change, incite change, embrace change or lament change, depending on one’s temperament and the circumstances involved.

    And once change has occurred, the best direction to look is forward, not back.

    #1195986
    Little Froggie
    Participant

    LuL: We had some serious people here too, some who got too much in the way. We had all sorts. The general consensus was that this site is a chat room, a kosher one, where one finds convos that suits them for CONVO SAKE. It is not a class room and was never intended to be. (I know I keep repeating that, because I, like some others keep forgetting..) There as so many other sites that offer shiurim, classes, courses in most varying topics. That is not what the CR chat is all about. And that is not what the peoplach of the CR are attracted to.

    Most understand that things here are not at a direct direction, instruction, order, command. Rather just at conversation level, for the many reasons I’ve offered so many times (I forgot them too)

    No – I don’t own the place (yet). Neither does any one else of our esteemed postership. No need to turn this place into a (blah) school classroom. I DID MY YEARS!!!!

    +1

    #1195987
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    “I am not talking about any “good old days”. My point is that all the people asking about which seminary to go to are 3Ls at Columbia Law School trying to present themselves the way they think bais Yaakov girls would.”

    for real, or is that a joke?

    #1195988
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    for someone who claims his motto is, “??? ?? ???? ??????, ?????? ???? ??”….I’m not really seeing that here.

    #1195989
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Does being supportive only mean being supportive of those people who you think are similar to you?

    #1195990
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Who wants to define soporific?

    #1195991
    CTLAWYER
    Participant

    Soporific is something that tends to induce drowsiness or sleep.

    It could be a sleeping pill, but a particularly boring lecture or book can do the same.

    #1195992
    Torah613Torah
    Participant

    I have figured out several people on the CR based on only a few details. You have to assume that minor details are made up to disguise who the person is. Usually the major details are correct, as well as details that the person deems insignificant.

    #1195993
    Little Froggie
    Participant

    ME?!? (I’m outta here!!!)

    #1195994
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Torah613Torah – how do you even so many of the people? Even if I could figure out who people are, I think there is almost no one here whom I could possibly know in real life.

    My impression though is that there are a lot of men from New York here. So I guess if you are a man from New York, it is more likely that you know several people here.

    You think so many people lie (about the minor details)?

    #1195995
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    -My hypothesis is that at least one moderator is a rebbetzin or like a rebbetzin. At least one gives amazing advice and it’s a shame that she must hold her tongue in the CR.

    -Another is an aba whose children are grown.

    -Another has a smicha and prefers not to be in front of a huge crowd, so he gives back by moderating.

    -Another one started the job and then brought his/her friend in to work when a spot opened up.

    Those are my guesses.

    #1195996

    So does anyone here think it was him who I discovered?

    #1195997
    popa_bar_abba
    Participant

    I admit it was I.

    To wit, I did attend the Pennsylvania School of Higher Lunacy, a prestigious school in Philadelphia committed to the study of the moon. I also have Facts 1, 2, and 3. Fact 4 was that I went to Penn law, but it was untrue as I am a 3L at Columbia.

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