Pesach This Week

Pesach has been my favorite Festival, at least for my adulthood.  It's a form of boundary.  It's a form of reset.  The preparation always ends with an inner sense of having accomplished something important.

Some preparation begins weeks in advance.  Who's coming for Seder or Shabbos?  What to cook has been a more recent phenomenon, done for me in my school years, Seders done by my in-laws until my mother-in-law's health made her unable to do this.  Now I plan menus in advance, adapted to the number of people present.  

We have cleaning in the few days preceding yontif.  Refrigerator is the big one.  Carpets cleaned professionally, sometimes living room furniture too.  I try to wash the floor, succeeding most years.  Dishes need to be brought upstairs from basement storage.  The heavy boxes become more of an effort each year, but I manage.  Fleishig washed first, as needed for Sederim.  Shopping generates my largest grocery receipts of each year, as certified foods go into the cart, I am willing to spend a little extra on meat to offer to guests what may be unrealistic for them to obtain on their own for one or two-person households.  I don't particularly like plush, but Seder becomes sort of plush.

And then yontif arrives.  Logistics.  Getting to siyyum so I do not have to fast as a firstborn.  Transporting my sister-in-law.  Preparing a multicourse repast with ritual elements.  Cleaning up as I go and fast enough to exchange the sink to tackle needed milchig dishes the following day.  Defrost in ample time what needs to come out of the freezer.  Knowing what dishes need the oven and which need the stove top.

And synagogue, not always my favorite destination, and at least one day not my home congregation.  I have some utility there, Torah and Haftarah reader this year, Bachur in a congregation that has no Levites, so a default to assist our Kohanim with their congregational blessing.  Perhaps dress a little nicer, bring out some of my spring clothing, though never compete with Easter finery.

Festival on its way, the week's dominant event.