MUSINGS

Pesach Warrior
Yitti Berkovic

Last Erev Pesach, one of my children taught me a lesson I hope I never forget. In a moment that was both hilariously funny and embarrassingly sad, this child opened my eyes to see that I was doing the pre-Pesach whirlwind all wrong. To protect this child’s identity, I will call him or her Child B. I chose Child B for what I thought was a fun pre-Pesach task – hiding the ten pieces of bread for bedikas chametz. (This was after said-child complained that I always gave him or her the worst jobs – like peeling potatoes or keeping little brother out of the kitchen. My apologies!).

I handed Child B the reins for this mission: all he or she needed to do was choose the hiding spots and record them on a sheet of paper so there was no risk of any bread eluding capture. When Child B gave me the thumbs up that all the bread had been secreted away, my husband (Yossi) got bedikas chametz started. I trailed behind him with a pen and paper, ready to write down each of the missing breads as they were located to ensure we didn’t discover the last piece of bread sometime in the middle of the Seder.  

Yossi moved briskly and purposefully into the first room and then into the second, but he didn’t discover any telltale Ziploc bags with white bread. Wow, I thought proudly. Child B was super creative with hiding spots!

In the third room, one of my sons held the candle while my husband opened and closed drawers until finally, Yossi announced with a flourish: “Aha! Found one!” Before I could even jot it down on my paper, my husband brandished another bag: “I found the second bag. And here’s another one! Wait—one more!”

As Yossi rummaged through the drawer, the Ziploc bags quickly piled up, and I did a swift accounting. One, two… seven… nine… ten? Child B had put all ten pieces in the same drawer! (Granted, it was in the kitchen junk drawer, so excavation was still needed to discover the ten pieces under the rubble of random screws, markers without caps, and batteries that may or may not be dead).

But we were only in the third room of our house, and the bedikas chametz “hunt” was all but over. Yossi continued his search in the rest of the house, but I was perplexed and, I’ve got to admit, a little annoyed.

Our house is hardly a mansion, but it has three stories and lots of nooks and crannies where we have lost sneakers, car keys, and homework sheets. Couldn’t Child B have put in a little more effort?

“Why did you put all ten pieces in the same drawer?” I asked.

Child B. shrugged defensively. “I thought you would be happy to get bedikas chametz over with quickly because you keep saying you still have so much to do.”

Oooooh.

With that answer, my child held up a metaphorical mirror, and what I saw wasn’t pretty. In my pre-Pesach rush, I had given my kids an unspoken message: I wanted everything done quickly. Chick-chock. Cross it off our list with as little fuss as possible.

My Pesach expediency was always something I prided myself on. I am the woman who insists confidently to all my friends: Pesach is not the time for spring cleaning! You don’t need to wash every individual crystal on your chandelier. What do you think this is – the alte heim? Just stick to the basics!”

But the message I was inadvertently giving my children was this: Pesach cleaning is not a joyful undertaking that we should do with care and attention to detail. This is tedious work, so look for shortcuts. Embrace every life hack. Hide all ten pieces of bread in one drawer because we don’t want to waste time with a long and drawn-out bedikas chametz.

Oy. It wasn’t a good look.

I can’t help but think of a very different bedikas chametz I got to witness in my childhood, and the memory leaves a sharp sting of grief. It’s been only a year since the petirah of my beloved uncle, Dr. Heshy Blobstein (Yisrael Tzvi Halevi ben Ahron Dovid) ztz”l. Some of you might remember him because he was a renowned dermatologist in Brooklyn, where he was adored by his patients for his ehrlichkeit, compassion, and meticulous attention to detail.

At his levayah, one of his sons referred to my uncle as a warrior, and at first, I chafed at that description. A warrior? My uncle was gentle to his core: sweet and sensitive, kind and endlessly joyful, generous and soft-spoken, and the humblest person I knew. Maybe it was the English teacher in me, but those weren’t the adjectives I would use to describe a warrior.

But as his son described my uncle’s dveikus b’mitzvos, I began to understand what he meant. My uncle was a warrior in his steadfastness, in his resolve to stand against the generational tide that values speed and disposability and getting things done chick-chock – especially when it came to the way he did mitzvos.

He was a warrior in his intentions, in mining joy from tasks that others saw as tedious. And there is no greater testament to his warrior status than the way he did bedikas chametz every year.

When the chorus of voices insisted he was wasting his time – no one does four-hour bedikas chametz anymore! – he tuned them out completely.

To him, bedikas chametz was a privilege. A mitzvah to be done with purpose and kavanah.

As he examined every nook and cranny of his house, he was really searching his neshamah for chametz, embarking on a spiritual cleansing as he hunted for that wayward piece of spaghetti or Cheerio. He would passionately tell his children, “We are really looking for the chametz within ourselves.”

When it was still light outside, he went room to room and probed every corner – under beds, behind cabinets, inside couch pillows – even as his wife assured him that the house had been thoroughly cleaned. He would check and recheck and then check again. But when the sun set and his real bedikas chametz commenced, it was like nothing had been checked before. Again, he went through every drawer. Again, he lifted every couch cushion. Again, he knelt on the floor and peered under each bed. Every year, it took him at least four hours. Flashlight and feather in hand. Lights off. No one saying a word. He held his flashlight aloft like a warrior, embracing a “tedious” mitzvah with precision, exuberance, and an unadulterated thrill—this mitzvah was his to grab with both hands.

One of his children described his bedikas chametz to me as “magic”: the hush, the sense of being part of something so meaningful, the joy in doing a mitzvah that comes only once a year. It’s a stunning contrast to my house, where I learned a hard lesson from my child’s blink-and-you-missed-it attempt at bedikas chametz. Without realizing it, I accidentally robbed my kids of that “magic” because I taught them that the joy is in getting to the next thing on the to-do list—in getting it over with.

As I try to emulate my uncle’s example, some things remain the same. Pesach cleaning still isn’t spring cleaning. I’m the last person to tell anyone to take on ambitious cleaning projects – especially if you have little kids at home. I know too well the exercise in futility of trying to clean out closets while your two-year-old drops pretzels behind him like he is Hansel and Gretl – it’s as useful as chasing your own shadow.

But whatever we do this Pesach season – ambitious or super practical – we can do it with intention. With (exhausted) simchah. With (throbbing feet and) the recognition that the work we are doing is not tedious because it is the ratzon Hashem and we are so, so lucky to continue our mesorah – without shortcuts or life hacks or worst of all – the sense that we just want to get it over with.

Wishing you koach and joy as you get it all done! Chag kasher v’ same’ ach!