I.
They are Not Just Weeds
After such a long, wet winter, the open spaces are full of
different types of grasses, plants and trees. We can give our
children some indication of the richness of Hashem's
abundance by showing them how even seemingly useless `weeds'
are actually full of life-giving potential.
Grasses are actually forms of the five types of grains.
If you go to a patch of open ground, you can usually find
wheat, barley, oats, rye and spelt. Pick some samples of each
type, take them home and try to identify them. Theoretically,
you should be able to harvest them, thresh them and winnow
them to extract the grains and then grind them to make flour
which you can make into bread. This would be a wonderful
educational project. Now your child would be able to see in
action the melochos which are forbidden on Shabbos!
However, you might find that the grains are too small to be
usable and the heads of the stalks might be teeming with
insects.
You might also see among the `weeds' such valuable herbs as
fennel, camomile, anise, nettle and milk thistle. You can
often find bushes of lavender and mint growing wild.
If you look around at the trees, you might see palms
producing dates and other trees growing pomegranates, lemons,
figs, grapes, apples, oranges, carob and loquat
(shesek).
II.
Baking Matzos Every Day
(based on a talk by Rabbi Mordechai Dolinsky
The group of yungerleit were sweating over their
tasks. One young man was measuring out the flour, another was
measuring the water, another mixed the flour and water to
make a heavy dough and then others rolled the dough and
formed it into the thin, round, flat cakes which were to be
baked into matzos. Each member of the team had his task,
which he was performing with intense care and devotion.
The team was baking their matzos to use for the special
matzas-mitzva to be eaten on Pesach Seder night. They
did not want to use matzos baked by other people, because
they wanted to be sure that their matzos were baked according
to all the intricate halachic requirements. They also wanted
to invest their matzos with their own special, lofty
kavonos which would become integrated into the matzos
and give special spiritual value to them when they were eaten
in fulfillment of the mitzvos of the Seder night.
In this era of mass production, we tend to forget that we
really do put our soul into everything we do. When a wife is
preparing food for her husband so that he have strength to
learn and do mitzvos, or when she makes up her child's
lunch bag so that he learn better, her intentions become
absorbed into the food. Then, when the food is eaten, this
intention is absorbed together with the food.
So, a wife and mother can "bake matzos" all year 'round.
