The Bright Side

I have survived April 22nd. The day included some wistful thinking and desolate longing on my part, but, otherwise, passed quietly and uneventfully. I guess that's the way it should be.

Now I am in what I like to call the "post-seder blues". We make so much of the build-up to Passover. How much you do depends on your level of observance. I observe the holiday strictly, so, in the week leading up there is the cleaning of the kitchen (and whole house), putting away all the kitchen items used during the year, schlepping out the Passover dishes and pots and glasses and silverware and serving pieces, etc..., shopping for the special Passover food, unpacking it all into your newly cleaned and completely empty refrigerator and cleaned off counters, realizing you forgot something and going back to the supermarket for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th time..., cooking all the food, setting the table, having the first seder, cleaning up, and doing the seder-thing all over again the next night!

When you come back to work, people ask "how was your Passover" not realizing that you've only been through the first two or three days and have the rest of the week left. And, why would they realize that, given the build-up we make beforehand of getting ready and preparing for the seders.

But now we are in the "ugh-I-just-cannot-eat-any-more-leftovers-or-matzah-but-I-don't-know-what-the-heck-else-to-eat-for-the-next-six-days" phase. The post-seder blues!

But, at least April 22nd is in the past and my non-existent child was not forced to celebrate his or her 1st birthday with a kosher for passover cake. See, there's a bright side to everything!!

Passover

I am just taking a break from my final Passover preparations and watching the Pope celebrate mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Even though, religiously, it has no meaning for me, the pageantry is lovely to watch.

Tonight and tomorrow night we will perform the Passover seder. While it will not be of the magnitude of the single mass I'm watching right now, in some ways it might even be bigger, as we will be performing it while, collectively, millions of other jewish families around the globe will be reading and recalling the same story as us. It is the same story and ritual that was celebrated by many generations of my family before me and I pray to G-d that it can and will be celebrated by many generations of my family after me.

To all who will be observing, I wish you a zisn, koshern, freylakhn Pesach (a sweet, kosher, happy Passover)!!!