The experience of joining the Mishpacha team has been many things for me: exciting motivating edifying a true privilege. But it’s also been — or more accurately is about to become — downright cathartic even therapeutic. How so you ask? Well some time ago I wrote a confessional piece in which I owned up to a problem I have one that I share with of all people Joe Biden.

I explained that Joe and I share an excessive fondness for the spoken word; we’re given to garrulousness. In plain English we’ve got a problem knowing when to conclude a speech and gracefully take a seat. As I put in then:

My wife still reminds me occasionally of one particular sheva brachos we hosted for a family member many years back at which there were eight speeches which when supplemented by the multi-minute euphemistically termed “introductions” I provided for most of the speakers — which I felt obliged to do in conscientious performance of my duties as master of ceremonies — resulted in a final tally of orations in the mid-teens and a total word count of … I’d just rather not “go there.”

And I know it’s an issue that lots of readers can relate to as well because many of you are regularly subjected to sitting through speeches of the many others in our community who struggle with this disorder. Awhile back I attended a simchah at which after several speakers had honed their already considerable homiletic skills on the ears of the assembled an uncle of the bar mitzvah bochur rose to “say a few words.” He proceeded to deliver brief but heartfelt words of brachah in under two minutes and sat down.

The palpable reaction of the guests I was seated with was two-fold. First there was astonishment when the realization dawned that this man had actually meant what he said about offering “a few words of brachah.” This was something they clearly were not accustomed to and understandably so. The phrase “a few words” often turns out to have had the word “thousand” inadvertently deleted from it and the promise of “and I’ll end with this” usually translates in the listener’s mind into “settle in this guy’s got a good fifteen minutes to go.” And the guests’ second reaction silent but completely audible to all present? “Yes!!!”

I went on in that article to describe the ambitious plans I’d considered implementing to address my “issue.”

I’ve often thought of initiating support groups for those of us afflicted with this malady known scientifically as “logorrhea” and defined as “excessive and often incoherent wordiness.” In my mind’s eye I see myself opening the very first session: “My name is Eytan Kobre and I’m a logorrhea-ac.” Problem is I don’t know if anyone else present besides me would get a word in edgewise once I’m off and running.…

We’d offer strategies designed to help those of us who want to rein in our loquaciousness. Among the potential offerings would be a primer on how to prepare a drashah. It would enlighten prospective speakers that it’s not absolutely necessary to shoehorn this week’s parshah into every single talk. It would explain that a speaker who hasn’t thought about how to end his remarks isn’t all that different from a pilot who can handle takeoff but has no idea how to land a plane — not a happy scene.…

There’d also be a workshop to help the would-be darshan to recognize those telltale clues that he’s gone way past his allotted time: when the soft snoring coming the entire time from Uncle Izzie’s direction begins to turn progressively louder; when the guests having used the speech time to consume every last morsel on the table start in on the juice remaining in the pickle tray; when the hired cleaning help having put up all the unused chairs and finished sweeping the rest of the hall asks the speaker to lift his foot so they “can get all the crumbs.”

What has any of this to do with my having joined Mishpacha? Very soon you see I will begin writing a weekly opinion column in its pages whose length will be limited per orders from on high not to mention the simple realities of magazine production to a rather modest word count. And did I mention that there is another condition that mirrors excessive verbosity but involves instead the compulsion to create comprehensive seemingly endless written treatments of a topic when a tightly reasoned and worded piece of one-third the size would more than adequately do? Although this form of the disease — there I said it — has yet to be described in the scientific literature it is indeed all too real. I know.

And so I have nothing but deep thanks felt and offered in advance to Mishpacha for the healing the cathartic feeling of wellness that I anticipate being my lot once I am forced by this new byline of mine to discover the simple joy of becoming once again if ever I was a man of few — okay let’s be realistic fewer — words.

And hey maybe the magazine can even find a way to submit the bill for my services to its group health insurance carrier for reimbursement under the “alternative therapies” rider on the company plan.