Yisroel Besser
By the time you read this, you’ll have surely seen pictures of the ten wrapped pieces of chometz, available on the shelves of your nearest supermarket, and you’ve groaned. What will they think of next? How lazy can people be?
Someone has rolled their eyes and told you that the crumbs are nothing, they’ve seen salt water ready for purchase, imagine that.
First off, whoever has given us these innovations — off-the-rack crumbs and salt water — may you be blessed. You have enabled every single Jewish woman to feel efficient and capable — however disorganized her house might be, there are people who need to buy salt water!
But really, the whole phenomenon got me thinking about the expenses and preparation and pre-Yom Tov rush.
This Yom Tov, especially, has its lists and sub-lists of shopper types. Isn’t it intriguing that the Yom Tov that essentially celebrates our becoming one, our birthday as the chosen nation, highlights so much separation?
Forget the traditional kitniyos divide, we have gebrochts people and the never-brochers. Team Shemurah Matzah facing off with Team Machine Matzos Are Actually More Mehudar. The “we never use” partisans against the “it’s no inyan to” brigade, and the ever ready “we’re not in Romania anymore” lobby.
The stakes are high: The ones who bake Erev Pesach matzos exuberantly shout out words of Hallel, while the ones on the other side, who don’t, shout that the product is chometz with equal fervor.
Depending on where we live and our income bracket, we might be able to virtue-signal our disdain for Pesach hotel-goers. Careful with this one, because many a fiery zealot has changed his tune upon being invited to California or Cancun, expunging old opinions faster than a potential Trump appointee deletes old tweets.
I think the heileger Berditchever would be impressed by each and every one of us. Hotza’as Yom Tov means different things to different people, but in every case, it means something.
From that earnest talmid chacham down to the salt water buyers, all of you — with your passion and fervor and determination to do what your fathers did, the seriousness with which you approach this, the sense that yes, it does make a difference — are holy.
Yes, even the hotel-goers. Imagine what kind of family vacation they could take with that investment of resources: yet rather than arrange a memorable family July 4th weekend, they invest in simchas Yom Tov. That’s holy.
The super-stores open 24 hours a day for the week before Pesach aren’t feeding consumerism; they’re accommodating Jews who understand, on some level, that Yom Tov is everything, that the seudos and mood and atmosphere make a difference.
The pre-Yom Tov outlay of energy and resources and time has a name: hotza’as Yom Tov.
I remember leaving the Mir one day around Rosh Chodesh Nissan. The avreichim had just received “chalukah,” the monthly kollel stipend with an added Yom Tov bonus.
The street in front of the yeshivah had been transformed into a shuk, the hoods of the parked cars serving as informal kiosks manned by eager merchants, who’d been tipped off that it was payday.
A small crowd gathered around the hood of a rusty Peugeot, where a slick young man in a tight black T-shirt that said “Hugo Bass” was hawking women’s jewelry, bracelets, and necklaces in the 200-shekel range.
A yungerman with glasses that were missing an arm shared a chiddush with the group. “The chiyuv to buy something for a wife for Yom Tov, to gladden her heart, isn’t just said to the men. I would happily buy her something every week. All my Torah is hers, she works to support us and feeds our children and runs the house, while I’m here all day. She deserves it, but she would never take it. She would return it and use the money for the electric bill, or for a coat for one of the children. The Torah is speaking to them, to the women, telling them that when their husbands buy a gift, they should accept it, allow themselves to become gladdened. It’s Yom Tov and they have to be happy, so now they have to take it.”
The other men nodded along, identifying with the sentiment, even if they didn’t learn the sugya the same way.
With that, he handed over the Yom Tov bonus, thrilled that he could actually gladden his wife.
The motions, the repeated trips to overworked tailors and dry cleaners and barbers, the traffic woes and parking challenges, are background music to a song: its lyrics are “Back to ATM again.”
No, not really. It’s something much more sophisticated.
Imagine a mother who sends her children to the grocery store with a list: eggs, potatoes, and a loaf of bread.
On the way, the children are accosted by hoodlums who beat them up. They are hospitalized with broken bones, and eventually, they are released.
On the way home from the hospital, they are kidnapped, held for ransom. When they are freed, they head home, only to be involved in a terrible car accident, and they are badly shaken up.
One tragedy after another, lo aleinu, a series of mishaps.
Finally, they have a quiet moment. One child looks at the other and says, “Let’s go, we have to get Mommy the four eggs and six potatoes and the bread.”
“No,” says the second child, “it’s four potatoes and six eggs, you’re wrong!”
In their argument, there is a glorious message to their mother. We haven’t forgotten! We know we have a mother, we haven’t been broken by our suffering, we know where we come from, we know that we have a mission, and we know where we’re going!
Three thousand three hundred thirty years ago, the One Who led us out of Mitzrayim told us to remember.
We’ve gone through a few deserts since then, faced different sorts of animals along the way, experienced intense hunger and extreme thirst, been pulled apart piece by piece, scattered around like the Clics pieces you just found under the basement radiator, but we still remember.
We left as twelve that were really one, but also one that was really twelve. And as such we march on, together and different, on the way home.
And Baruch Hashem, we can all agree on something: People who have to buy salt water are pathetic.
By the time you read this, you’ll have surely seen pictures of the ten wrapped pieces of chometz, available on the shelves of your nearest supermarket, and you’ve groaned. What will they think of next? How lazy can people be?
Someone has rolled their eyes and told you that the crumbs are nothing, they’ve seen salt water ready for purchase, imagine that.
First off, whoever has given us these innovations — off-the-rack crumbs and salt water — may you be blessed. You have enabled every single Jewish woman to feel efficient and capable — however disorganized her house might be, there are people who need to buy salt water!
But really, the whole phenomenon got me thinking about the expenses and preparation and pre-Yom Tov rush.
This Yom Tov, especially, has its lists and sub-lists of shopper types. Isn’t it intriguing that the Yom Tov that essentially celebrates our becoming one, our birthday as the chosen nation, highlights so much separation?
Forget the traditional kitniyos divide, we have gebrochts people and the never-brochers. Team Shemurah Matzah facing off with Team Machine Matzos Are Actually More Mehudar. The “we never use” partisans against the “it’s no inyan to” brigade, and the ever ready “we’re not in Romania anymore” lobby.
The stakes are high: The ones who bake Erev Pesach matzos exuberantly shout out words of Hallel, while the ones on the other side, who don’t, shout that the product is chometz with equal fervor.
Depending on where we live and our income bracket, we might be able to virtue-signal our disdain for Pesach hotel-goers. Careful with this one, because many a fiery zealot has changed his tune upon being invited to California or Cancun, expunging old opinions faster than a potential Trump appointee deletes old tweets.
I think the heileger Berditchever would be impressed by each and every one of us. Hotza’as Yom Tov means different things to different people, but in every case, it means something.
From that earnest talmid chacham down to the salt water buyers, all of you — with your passion and fervor and determination to do what your fathers did, the seriousness with which you approach this, the sense that yes, it does make a difference — are holy.
Yes, even the hotel-goers. Imagine what kind of family vacation they could take with that investment of resources: yet rather than arrange a memorable family July 4th weekend, they invest in simchas Yom Tov. That’s holy.
The super-stores open 24 hours a day for the week before Pesach aren’t feeding consumerism; they’re accommodating Jews who understand, on some level, that Yom Tov is everything, that the seudos and mood and atmosphere make a difference.
The pre-Yom Tov outlay of energy and resources and time has a name: hotza’as Yom Tov.
I remember leaving the Mir one day around Rosh Chodesh Nissan. The avreichim had just received “chalukah,” the monthly kollel stipend with an added Yom Tov bonus.
The street in front of the yeshivah had been transformed into a shuk, the hoods of the parked cars serving as informal kiosks manned by eager merchants, who’d been tipped off that it was payday.
A small crowd gathered around the hood of a rusty Peugeot, where a slick young man in a tight black T-shirt that said “Hugo Bass” was hawking women’s jewelry, bracelets, and necklaces in the 200-shekel range.
A yungerman with glasses that were missing an arm shared a chiddush with the group. “The chiyuv to buy something for a wife for Yom Tov, to gladden her heart, isn’t just said to the men. I would happily buy her something every week. All my Torah is hers, she works to support us and feeds our children and runs the house, while I’m here all day. She deserves it, but she would never take it. She would return it and use the money for the electric bill, or for a coat for one of the children. The Torah is speaking to them, to the women, telling them that when their husbands buy a gift, they should accept it, allow themselves to become gladdened. It’s Yom Tov and they have to be happy, so now they have to take it.”
The other men nodded along, identifying with the sentiment, even if they didn’t learn the sugya the same way.
With that, he handed over the Yom Tov bonus, thrilled that he could actually gladden his wife.
The motions, the repeated trips to overworked tailors and dry cleaners and barbers, the traffic woes and parking challenges, are background music to a song: its lyrics are “Back to ATM again.”
No, not really. It’s something much more sophisticated.
Imagine a mother who sends her children to the grocery store with a list: eggs, potatoes, and a loaf of bread.
On the way, the children are accosted by hoodlums who beat them up. They are hospitalized with broken bones, and eventually, they are released.
On the way home from the hospital, they are kidnapped, held for ransom. When they are freed, they head home, only to be involved in a terrible car accident, and they are badly shaken up.
One tragedy after another, lo aleinu, a series of mishaps.
Finally, they have a quiet moment. One child looks at the other and says, “Let’s go, we have to get Mommy the four eggs and six potatoes and the bread.”
“No,” says the second child, “it’s four potatoes and six eggs, you’re wrong!”
In their argument, there is a glorious message to their mother. We haven’t forgotten! We know we have a mother, we haven’t been broken by our suffering, we know where we come from, we know that we have a mission, and we know where we’re going!
Three thousand three hundred thirty years ago, the One Who led us out of Mitzrayim told us to remember.
We’ve gone through a few deserts since then, faced different sorts of animals along the way, experienced intense hunger and extreme thirst, been pulled apart piece by piece, scattered around like the Clics pieces you just found under the basement radiator, but we still remember.
We left as twelve that were really one, but also one that was really twelve. And as such we march on, together and different, on the way home.
And Baruch Hashem, we can all agree on something: People who have to buy salt water are pathetic.
[Mishpacha Magazine]
