With a Gleam in the Eye

Goldie Tennenhaus – N’shei Chabad Newsletter

This year will be different, I told myself. This year Pesach will be a joyous Yom Tov. I was determined. I knew it might be a challenge.

Pesach seems to be an endless trauma passed down for generations. One of my sisters calls it the Pesach Panic. The other gets this tight look on her face. One sister still has the joy. She prepares for Pesach by focusing on the family that is coming to celebrate with her.

I vaguely remember when Pesach was a joy. Everyone was in full motion. There was a busy hum. I spent Sundays cleaning my bedroom, checking all the pockets of the clothing in my bulging closet and shaking out seforim in the family room. I remember the dining room being locked a few days before Yom Tov as it was cleaned for Pesach!

I got the oh-so-special job of cracking the walnuts for the charoses. My mother made me stay in the dining room all day until I was finished. And there was the hushed silence when the boxes of shmurah matzah were carried into the house and put into that locked dining room.

There were new clothes. There were new spring coats, even though it was usually still cold in Montreal. We froze on our way to shul on the first day of Pesach because we just had to wear the new spring coats. There were even new socks, new shoes, new underwear and new pajamas.

Big pots of borscht, tzimmes and applesauce cooked on the stove. I don’t remember feeling hungry once the whole Yom Tov, even though the food was so different from the rest of the year.

On seder night, the house shone, the table sparkled, and my mother’s face gleamed in satisfaction. We teased our siblings through the Mah Nishtanah and everyone got their turn to say an explanation of some part of the Haggadah.

When we wobbled to bed, we checked the clock so we could boast how late our seder had lasted. One year I remember my father threatening me that I would have to go to sleep before the seder was over because I was laughing riotously. I must have added a little too much wine to the grape juice. And then I grew up. I lost the joy.

Iknew I had a problem when my cleaning help anxiously asked me if she could start the Pesach cleaning in January. When I started agonizing over Pesach in September, I knew I was traumatized. When did it turn into a looming and overwhelming burden?

Was it the year the stove broke a few hours before Pesach? Was it waiting for my husband to kasher the kitchen, only to have it done at midnight after bedikas chometz, until I learned how to kasher the kitchen on my own?

Was it my family’s insistence that they needed to eat chometz in the house until Erev Yom Tov? Was it, as my daughter calls it, my perfectionism in wanting all of it to be perfect and beautiful?

There was the time my husband’s colleague told him on Erev Yom Tov that we needed to change the kitchen sink faucet, not just the filter and strainer. The faucet we bought was not the right fit, and there was water spritzing and leaking all over. Another time we could not find the tenth piece of hidden bread. All I could think about during bedikas chometz was that I spent all that time cleaning and now the candle wax was dripping all over my scrubbed floors.

Then there were the competitive conversations between friends and neighbors on our progress, which left me either in a panic or feeling guilty for enjoying the anxious, glazed look in the other person’s eyes.

This year will be different. I was determined. I recently turned fifty, thank G-d, and at this point in my life it is just not becoming to kvetch and complain about Pesach. It is a mitzvah in the Torah. When I heard myself going on and on, and heard my children repeating it, I felt embarrassed. I was going to find the joy.

Out of the blue, an offer came for my husband to be a rabbi at a Lubavitch Pesach program. We both felt a little uncomfortable about the idea of eating food made in a hotel kitchen.

But considering my anxiety about Pesach, my husband jumped at it. After all, he had said for years that if Lubavitchers would go to hotels for Pesach he would go, just to spare me the stress. Here was our chance. I thought, wow, look how Hashem answered my prayer.

In the end, however, the Pesach hotel plans fell through. It took me a day to recover. I thought, Hashem is giving me the opportunity to follow through on my commitment.

I made a plan. This year Iwould only get rid of the chometz. I was not going to paint, wash curtains, or do any major repairs. The hardest was resisting the impulse to declutter every corner of the house. Pesach cleaning does not have to be spring cleaning! Yes, I did some of that, but I held back as soon as I felt the kvetchiness start to come out.

I reminded myself that there was a reason for the prayer Kol Chamira. Torah was given to people, not angels.

I was going to celebrate the fact that we can celebrate Pesach. I would do the best that I could, and be b’simchah.

I finally decided to listen to my mother, who gave birth to several Pesach babies. For years she told me that if I did not manage to clean an area for Pesach, just throw a sheet over it and mark it “chometz.” Close up the closets and give each child a basket to keep their clothes in for Yom Tov. (I have a friend who gave birth three weeks before Pesach. She hung sheets over the books, over the toys, over most of the house.) Put up two big pots of eggs and potatoes every day of Chol Hamoed early in the day, so that there is always something to eat. The chicken and carrots and potatoes from the soup are good for a main dish and a vegetable!

I kept repeating out loud that I will prepare this Yom Tov with simchah. My daughter kept saying, “Ma, keep it simple.” I tried, but I just couldn’t get it. I told my daughter that when she gets married I will come to her. It helped that my youngest sister and her family moved in with me the last week before Pesach. They kashered the kitchen, cooked, and helped me with last minute
shopping. Despite all my good intentions, though, I had a meltdown shortly before Pesach and moved into my son and daughter-in-law’s quiet, clean and empty townhouse while they were out of town spending Yom Tov with her family.

Not to worry. A new Pesach is approaching. (Did you notice I did not say LOOMING?) I have a new opportunity. I am once again planning, with Hashem’s help, to make Pesach this year in my own home (still without a Pesach kitchen), with a newly recovered sense of joy for this beautiful family Yom Tov. This is my request in my next pidyon nefesh. And may Hashem keep me strong enough to follow through, at least until I can go to my daughter’s house for Pesach.

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