I really don't like Pesach.
Of all the Jewish holidays, the one I dread the most is Pesach.
Not because of the cleaning, not because of the change in diet - though that sucks - not because of the retelling of the same story as last year and the year before and the year before and so on.
I dread Pesach partly because I'm poor and not very well organised. But I also dread Pesach because I usually go into crisis at some point during the eight days - not always, but it's not uncommon. Pesach is a hard holiday for a lot of reasons.
Now I am a great cook. I can do an awful lot with the limited diet of an Ashkenazi Jew on Pesach - so food isn't really the issue. But not being able to get what I want to have for the holiday - it's shaming.
To have to ask the rabbi if he takes SNAP and when he says not yet having to tell him then all I will be getting from his shop is the box of Shmurah matzohs for my seders - because I can't afford anything else. I really can't afford the matzohs either, but my future wife insists I have what I am used to and consider kosher because she loves me. She also picked out and bought the bekishe I'm getting married in and told me to check with my rebbe on other customs specific to our chassidus - and wants me in a specific type of hat. I may wear the pants, but it's appearing to be kind of a technicality. grin
I will be at the kosher Albertsons stocking up on end cuts too small for other people's celebrations and kosher for Pesach hot dogs with my SNAP because I like to have meat with my cardboard. I will walk past the aisles and aisles of Pesach specialty items that seem to grow every year and know - not for me, it's not in the budget - it gets a little old sometimes and pushes the melancholy button pretty hard. Of course I tell myself that I should be holding gebrockts which would make those foods not really kosher for Pesach for me anyway. (Gebrockts in this context means that we are extra careful not to allow any matzah anything to get wet during Pesach and involves extra care and further limits the cooking options.) It doesn't really take the sting out to the inner child that wants plague toys and Pesach cake.
There are bright places, there always are. This year I have my cat to tell the story to, next year I will have children to tell it to. It's really easy to recline and eat on my boat since I can cook in bed. I will have seders and they will be nice. A little standard maybe, a little small, but nothing a chassidiche balabusta would sniff at. During the intermediate days I get some more income and can pick up more fresh items for the holiday - I'm in no real danger of starving or anything else.
But as I prepare to leave Mitzrayim this year and I look at my life - I think I'm suddenly a little scared to leave. It's comfortable here. I get by. I really will have to live by Emuna and wits and partnership on the ocean. Am I ready to be a husband, a step father, a sailor of the Pacific, a man? I have been a half spoiled boy for so long. Which son am I? Simple or Wicked? Will I live up to what it means this year to leave and become a Jew?
Oh, how this year is different from other years. Baruch Hashem.