The Passover Hug



I didn’t realize how tired I was until I plopped myself down into that white plastic chair by the Western Wall at 10 PM.

What a tornado of a day it had been. Kids, house, morning prayers, blog, cooking, cleaning up, friend’s bar mitzvah, lunch, Passover cleaning, English homework, Passover shopping, dinner, more cleaning, etc.

But despite my hours of work, I still had:

… promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Yes, I had cleaned that big living room cabinet, but the Weisberg family clean and dirty laundry were still piled as high and comically as Dr. Seuss mountains. Yes, I had carefully pinched the crumbs out of the corner of my desk drawer, but my girls’ room still remained an impassable rain forest of tossed clothing, stuffed animals, and chocolate wafers hidden from Eema after every school birthday party (I have 4 daughters with over a hundred classmates between them. You do the math…) Yes, I had analyzed the gritty sand in the pockets of all the winter coats, but while I was doing that my neglected 2-year-old Yoel had spent much of the afternoon crying in protest as he straddled his tricycle pointed demonstratively (for clueless, cleaning Eemas) towards the front door.

And sitting there in that white plastic chair by the Wall, I felt the weight of that day, of this hectic month, pull me down like cement blocks into the murky waters of the Hudson.

Now that I had finally stopped moving for the first time in recent memory, how would I ever manage to pull myself up out of that chair again?

But then I felt something so wonderful. Pure bliss.

I felt G-d hug me.

“You’ve been working so hard for Me, so hard for everyone,” this grandfather embrace told me. And a tear popped into the corner of eye, at the wonder of being seen for the first time in…. well, I don’t even know how long.

From within the wonder of that hug, I realized I had been so busy looking at how thoroughly my neighbors were soaping up their chairs on my sidewalk amidst a river of cleanser, and feeling bad about how much cleaner than mine their houses anyway are all year round, that it hadn’t occurred to me to stop and say, “Hey Chana, you’ve been working pretty darn hard too! Be proud!”

“Remember this feeling!” I ordered myself. Bring this hug, this oozing warmth through your intestines back to the Dr. Seuss laundry piles and the petrified honey/breadcrumb silverware drawers and the naughty chocolate wafers hidden underneath your daughters’ turquoise and yellow smiley pillows.

And Passover, Jewish mom, is that hug. Passover teaches us that no matter how far away you feel, every Jew is connected to G-d.

So scrub your cupboards and open your arms, Jewish mom, and get ready. You’ve got a big HUG coming your way.

photo courtesy of Flickr.com user Jasmic

2 comments

  1. Elana Mizrahi

    Thank You! Lovely

  2. miriam leibowitz

    I’m waiting for the hug
    thanks,

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