A brilliant "All in the Family" episode featured Archie wanting to invest in a get-rich-quick scheme with old-man Bernstein, played by the great Jack Gilford.
As Bernstein lays dying on the Bunker's couch, he faces his own mortality and failures, while telling Archie the difference between a schlemiel and a schlemiel. "A schlemiel is somebody who often spills his soup and a schlimazel is the person the soup lands on," recalling the old Yiddish saying that his father taught him.
Imagine spending your life knowing that you are either a schlemiel or a schlimazel. Some days you feel like both.
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