Winding Down Pesach

Last few hours before yontiff. Not yet craving chametz but a day to wind down Pesach. Maybe package and return to basement Passover items that will not be used any more this Festival to save me some trips to the basement Sunday. Should take inventory on what I did or did not use. Can package the salt, dishwashing liquid, and coffee filters still in unopened boxes and keep the already open ones to use up during the year. Hardly consumed any Coca Cola, which is a good thing, but it only comes out as cane sugar based once a year, so buying a little extra has its benefit. Seemed more fond of club soda than in years past, though have not made myself a wine spritzer this holiday. Over purchased macaroons. Bought two packages of rather expensive and marginally edible Vita Lox. Goes on next years do not buy list. The upside of too much generosity at Shop-Rite was qualifying for a vegan turkey that I think I'll make for my upcoming birthday. Used about three boxes of matzoh. Usually I give one away but no kids visiting. Did not open the farfel at all, still have some from last year too. Make a kugel or two during the year, maybe stuffed chicken breasts for a couple of shabbatot, and treat myself to periodic matzoh brei.

It was a fine holiday from a culinary perspective which runs parallel to its logistical perspective. Made the right amount of brisket, converted some ordinary chicken breasts into a terrific stir fry that made three meals. Only one milchig supper, grand matzoh brei with Tabachnik's potato soup. Babanatza lasted each meal. Nusstorte provided a learning curve that will take effect next time I make it.

Shul remains closed. I didn't miss it. Our Rabbi declared Hallel and Yizkor as congregational destinations along with Tuesday afternoon mincha and a part kabbalat Shabbat with Cantor doing a Torah reading. This does not appeal to me at all. Our liturgy and festivals have Biblically prescribed times. Half-Hallel would be recited today. Yizkor would not. In defense, there is a Pesach Sheni for those indisposed at the appointed time, but it is a month later, not time shifted. But I think what's offered looks too much a blend of contrived, manipulated, and even phony for me to sign on. I'd rather respect the appointed times, do my best with them and skip those I cannot attend, but modifying my own activities as the specified times require. My wife feels differently. I'm more attached to Pesach from Coronavirus, less attached to my congregation.

As we ease past one Festival, we move with anticipation to the next. My iWatch has been set to buzz at 9PM nightly for Omer. I am attached to the Omer, a responsibility to be fulfilled irrespective of how I feel. Hair grows uncut until Lag B'Omer on day 33. It has its own culinary challenge, this one dairy, which can be rather elegant. It lacks the visual ritual though. People traditionally study long into the night, but again my congregation reminds me more of Hebrew School than Chavruta, so I've not been going. Perhaps shul will be open by then. I anticipate being a month past Covid immunization by then. If not my shul, than another. I think I am ready for formal live congregational assembly, with its ritual, its sounds, the sincere good will of those present. Emerge from Pesach now, emerge from isolation and cobbling together what has been a mostly unappealing Jewish experience perhaps to coincide with commemorating Torah.