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11 Nissan 5761 - April 4, 2001 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
Reflections on Pesach
The Joy of Doing our Own Work

by Tova Gutman

Each year as Nissan rolls around, my heart, rather than filling with the joy of the upcoming festival, begins to contract with fear and dread. How on earth will I manage this year? becomes my consuming thought.

With the exception of my first year of marriage, when I more- or-less managed, each year has brought its own trials.

Pesach Number Two I was contending with an unwieldy and unpredictable first pregnancy, and Pesach Number Three found us finishing off the shloshim of the fallen fruit of the previous year's struggles, and well along into the next "olive shoot."

Pesach Number Four the olive shoot was green with a bad case of hepatitis and another, spotted with chicken pox. Pesach Number Five and Six were incredibly stressful, nothing unusual, except for working around a few blessed kinder. For that, I can't complain! Still, I remember waking myself up at one a.m. to frantically clean between feedings and diaperings, with no strength in me whatsoever.

Pesach Number Seven I remember so well. We had moved into my dream apartment, only to discover that it was cold, damp and infested with mice. I recall sitting bleakly and drearily at our dining room table, impossibly weak from a recent birth, totally filled with despair. A big miracle occurred that year -- a crowd of seminary girls, led by a young lady I had last seen as a small child, took over my home and blew through it like a hurricane. As much as I appreciated the help, and needed it, I got a big potsch in the end. I hadn't been thorough enough and a month after Pesach, I found a full, unopened package of bread crumbs in one of the closets. We had sold all our chometz, of course, but I didn't get the zchus of a really chometz- free house because I was not yet chometz-free. It saddened me.

It's almost impossible to describe how nebach, silly, inexperienced and inadequate I felt over these years. There was a never-ending stream of paid and volunteer cleaners, sorters, organizers, and babysitters, along with and including my patient and ever-forebearing husband. I felt lost in the crowd and superfluous, a stranger in my own home, even as I directed the entire cast of characters. To prepare a 50 page report on intercultural communications I could do singlehandedly, but brushing away a few crumbs totally felled me.

And so, time in its inevitable journey has brought me to my kitchen table, standing at the threshold of another Pesach. It was a good year, quieter than most. No babies this year, a source of combination of wistful relief. After Purim rolled around and over and the yawning jaw of Nissan began to swallow me, I was forced to extricate myself. No excuses this year! Except for a sort of general fatigue, I was fit for service. I couldn't believe it, in a way, and half- heartedly collected phone numbers of cleaning services, but I knew in my heart that I wouldn't be needing them this year, boruch Hashem.

Believe me, when I tell you that I would not win the "Zriza of the Year" Pesach cleaning award. I worked as slow as a turtle, and with a similar lugubrious expression on my face. I only worked a few hours in my now quiet mornings. The rest of the day was reserved for the kids and regular house things. I was slightly messier than usual, but still alright. The children went to day camps or hung around, in various combinations, and this year I had the special pleasure of a six-and-a-half-year-old who could and would go to the grocery alone, and a husband who was able to keep his entire seder of learning undisturbed.

But the real gift, the true matnas Hashem, was the privilege we all pray for: the strength and stamina to do my own work. Had help come along, I'd have gladly accepted it. Had there been extra money, I might have hired some. But as it stood, I got a full portion this year of whatever was needed to bring in the chag with peace in my heart.

When the Jews were in the desert, the mon fell according to respective merit. Some had to walk far to get it while others collected it right by their door. In past years, I've felt I have had to walk miles to reach Pesach and this year, I felt Pesach move a little closer to me.

And for this, among so many other things, I am truly grateful.

 

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