My Pesach Special

A number of years ago, as an experiment, I decided it was time to see what it would be like to have a kosher kitchen. I asked a rabbi friend for help, and she came over (Thank you, Jill Hammer! You are permanently tied to my kosher kitchen story).

Since then, ironically, I always enter into the preparations for Passover with more than a tiny bit of resentment, and these days, I have so much fun blaming my 20-year-old daughter (21 in a couple of days!!) who’s a real stickler for this “religious” stuff. 

I watch this daughter with a sharp knife getting the built-up grit out of the bolts on the outside of my pots and I sneer in my cynical way; “Am I licking those bolts?”

And when I’m cleaning my house, all the while I’m thinking, “Does it make any sense? I’m not eating chametz (leavened food) off the floor or from the corners of my couch! It’s all symbolic, so does it really matter?”

The above-mentioned daughter bought me some contact paper this year to put on the counter top (because you really can’t kasher a plastic counter top, let’s be real, Mommy), and I really hope I can use it again next year, because I hate the waste involved.

And each day, even if I spread it out, the hours of vacuuming and standing in the kitchen leave me completely drained and my feet aching as I fall asleep at night.

People say, “Well, you gotta tell her, this is your house, and she’s gotta deal with it.”

But the truth is, in the end, I really love it. I just don’t like to admit it. 

Because when else would I actually clean out my disgusting refrigerator---I mean, really clean it--not to mention the rest of my house, all at the same time?

Yes, it’s all very overwhelming: the cleaning and the shopping and the cooking, and having to time it just right, all in the right order (like, what about the days right after you’ve cleaned the kitchen of chametz and before you can have matzoh?? What can you eat?? I know I’m being dramatic, but that’s how the mind works; you’re in a certain space, and you need to transition to a new one--oh! Just like the Israelites as they left Egypt and entered the desert--all that space in the desert!!!) 

But I actually liked that stupid fake marble contact paper on my counter once I’d struggled with cutting it and succeeded in putting it down and getting it just right; it’s so white and clean and easy to wash.

And the satisfaction---no, the beauty---of looking into my clean refrigerator with lots of space around the pots and casseroles of cooked food is...well, it’s just beautiful. 

It gives me such a feeling of...spaciousness.

Which is what I talked about last week: making space---for other choices, which means for other things to happen.  

This year, more than any other year, because of the pandemic, getting invested in Passover meant really sinking into the physical aspects of it because there was no family drama to distract or consume me.  

I had the space to slow down, take a breath, and methodically go through the cleaning and the cooking for the sheer joy of clearing away stuff. 

I got to stand at the sink with only 5 dishes to wash, not 15 or 20, and feel thankful for the simplicity of it---and, of course, for my beautiful refrigerator each time I opened it (more than once, I opened it just to look inside and see all the space!!)

And when we sat down to eat, just five of us, there was so much real joy at having made it through a very narrow place (our own Mitzraim, or “narrow place” in Hebrew)---for having physically survived the year. 

There were memories of me and my husband barely having the strength to sit at the table last year, so weak as we began to recover from Covid. 

When we sang, “Dayenu,” our older daughter, who in the past rejected all this “religious stuff,” chanted out, “Had we just survived this pandemic, it would have been enough; not only did we survive, but we’re sitting here with delicious, abundant food in front of us!” 

Yes. Passover is one of those times when I really get to see and, more importantly, feel the meaning of a mitzvah (an obligated act or commandment according to Jewish Law). 

And symbolism really is the point, isn’t it? Because transformation starts with symbolism. 

I often wonder what it would be like if I truly felt “obligated” to do all the things Jews are “supposed to” do according to Jewish law. (Again, cynically, I always say, “Who exactly ‘commanded’ us, anyway? Was it really God?? No, it was a bunch of men, a small, elite group, a very long time ago, who made up these rules for all of us, so why should I care?)

But what if, just for funzies, as my daughter would say, with the kind of commitment that comes from feeling obligated, I tried out more of those mitzvahs?

What other little joys might I discover in the space I’d create if I decided to suspend disbelief and cynicism, and did things “just because” and not because they make any sense?

Who knows? I guess I’ll have to do them and see what happens.