The famed Israeli sun had come back after a mild winter sans
the snow storm. With a dark interior,
the car had begun to heat up. I strapped
both kids to their seats in the back of the car and gave my eldest a bag of
kosher l’pesach bamba as my car had just been cleaned of its leavened agents.
It was a preemptive move to keep the children smiling. But as I tried to tie the seats to the car, I
realized that the seat belt buckles were under the seats from the cleaning. So
I had to do the whole exercise over again. Out came the girls and I lifted the
back seat to find the buckles. I
shoveled the girls back in the car and in the process the bag of bamba ripped
and left a massive trail of crumbs on the freshly cleaned seats. No matter,
what is really the difference if it happened today or in a week- it was going
to happen. I put the incident behind me, agitation aside, and ran to my seat. I
put the keys in the ignition, and turned. There was lots of noise but no ignition. This
was beyond my expertise. I could deal
with a dead battery and a flat tire, but what was this half-baked death? The battery still worked so how come my car
didn’t turn on?
The car
was getting hotter and the kids were getting bored. I needed to act quickly. I popped the hood and
grabbed the cables out of the trunk.
Even though the battery wasn’t dead, I was a one trick pony; this is the
only trick I knew and better to show your family something. Before I could do anything, though, a bald
and gruff middle aged Israeli came forward and without introductions started to
bark orders at me. Price of being
family, I guess, we do away with niceties. He saw through my vapid attempt to
look competent or so I thought. ‘Go get
water. There is a supermarket up the
street. Your battery is empty’. I was
unaware batteries drank water, but he said he worked in a garage, a real expert. I took a look at the kids- no cries- and ran
off. Ten minutes later, I came back with
water and by then the man informed me of the problem. My starter had shorted and he had fixed it. He opened the electric box and showed me a
tiny piece I would have never noticed. He poured water in to the battery slots
and started to flag down other cars to jump mine. He was excellent at giving orders.
I went
into the car, surprised at my fortune; a bit pushy, a bit gruff, but helping
nonetheless. After a few tries, the car
sprung to life. Miraculously, despite
the heat and entrapment, and a nearly 25 minute delay the kids stayed calm. I
was grateful and more than happy to give the man a token of gratitude, but a
token is not what he was looking for- he asked for one hundred dollars! I
offered fifty tops. He was tough as nails, and he had the gall to hand the
money back to me and he knew that inside my soft American skin, my feeling of guilty
gratitude would overcome the day and I would hand back the money with an addition. This game ended and I did not give him everything
he wanted, but I did give him more than I wanted to give initially. Although agitating, it was the perfect Pesach
lesson.
The holiday
is about Matzah, the bread of poverty (this is the first line of seder). What makes
it poor? Its simplicity.[1] It doesn’t have any extraneous ingredients,
just flour and water with no leavening agents.
And, more importantly, it doesn’t extend into the process of time as it
has to be made very fast. This simplicity is its strength as its minimalism
makes it thoroughly independent; it is
its most basic self and nothing else. Things that are not complicated are not connected
to anything else other than self, and consequently, are also not influenced
by anything else. That is the key to spiritual and moral greatness -to be
totally self-sufficient, to rule from the inside out as opposed to the outside
in. Real freedom is to be independent of external forces, and that is why
Matzah is the mascot for Pesach.[2]
As for
me, although I am not in Egyptian bondage, I do find myself in an Israeli
bondage at times, influenced by sly swindlers and I hope this year’s matzah
will strengthen my resolve not to be influenced by external factors no matter
how gruff or cunning they are.
Savory Seder Samples:
Why don’t we make a blessing over the mitzvah of retelling of the story at the beginning of the seder like we do for other mitzvos such as reading the megillah on Purim?
We
need to view our self like we are literally leaving Egypt. At the beginning of the
seder we are slaves with a proclivity for idol worship. Only at the end, do we
acquire a status of a Jew, and only then, is it fitting to make a
blessing. This is similar to a non- Jew
who undergoes conversion. He doesn’t
make a blessing of mikva immersion before because he is not Jewish, only after.
See the Chassam Sofer commentary to Vayikra for further elucidation.
Why do we say in the four questions of Ma Nishtana, ha Laila ha ze? Laila is feminine and we should say halaila ha zot?
The
answer is that while on most nights we have much fewer mitzvos to parallel the
feminine aspect of life which has fewer mitzvos. On seder night, all the mitzvos are commanded
to be done at night so the night is like a day, which is the male aspect.
Therefore, on Seder night, the night takes on a masculine energy. What
this really means on a deeper level, is that while at night, things are more
hidden on all levels, mitzvos included, on Seder night, everything is revealed,
it is day- we have a clear picture of G-d, and no more doubts should remain. See
the Gra.
How could such could a group of slaves come from the spiritual armpit of the world, Egypt, and become a holy nation?
All of
life works with contrast. The darker it is the more influential a light can
be. The Jews had to come from a dark
place to show the possibilities of life- one can go all the way up or all the
way down. More importantly, it tells us
about unity. True unity is not when people who are similar come together;
rather, it is when opposites play a part in the same story. Through contrast we see the unity of
G-d. Ultimate darkness is part of G-d’s
plan, but only as a background so that the light of clarity can shine brighter.
See Maharal Gevuros Hashem fifth chapter
