Another great post from Rabbi Andy Bachman’s blog, Notes. Here’s an excerpt:

My last Spring in Madison before heading off to rabbinical school,
we threw a party at our house for all the guys who were moving on to
their next stage in life.

One roommate was off to New York City
to pursue music; two others were off to law school; another was going
for a business degree; and I was off to rabbi school.

At the party the music was loud, the beer was cold, and the atmosphere was generally festive.  There was even dancing.

Feeling lucky, I ventured to the middle of the dance floor and started trying to talk to a girl. 

“What do you do?” she shouted over the music.

“I’m going to rabbinical school!”  I offered.

“Medical school–cool!” she said.

“No, rabbinical school,” I said.

“Huh?”  she asked.

The music died.  The bodies stopped moving.

“Rabbinical school,” I explained, one last time.  “I’m going to be a rabbi.”

Well that killed that conversation.

This
is often the way I feel at weddings or bar mitzvahs. Mind you, this is
not a plea for sympathy: more an anecdotal snapshot of reality. Because
these days, the affairs are a complex combination of celebrations: both
religious ritual and material indulgence. And honestly, no begrudging
here whatsoever: my God–Celebrate! L’Chaim!

But I’ve noticed over the
years that my presence is kind of, well, a bummer to a lot of people
(guilty glance if I see someone piling on the shrimp at the banquet
table); hostile or passive aggressive comments (usually about organized
religion ‘causing all the trouble in the world’); or, simply
indifference (’nice ceremony, rabbi, but pardon me while I party hard!’)