Sadness at the End of the Chag: This Awesome Time

I have always had difficulty leaving a Jewish holiday (chag) behind; Pesach is no different: it starts with frenetic preparations, cleaning, organizing, moving kitchen implements around, rearranging cabinets, in other words--with a BANG: and the climax is the Seder, or if one lives outside of Israel, TWO Seders even.

But it ends with a wimper, quietly, ending a Yom Tov (holy day) when one says Yizkor (prayers for remembering those loved ones & others who have died). Perhaps there is a special, last seudah called Seudat ha-Mashiach (the festive meal for the coming of the Messiah), but even that, if done, has a sadness to it, a longing, a yearning.

So it was for me, again, this Pesach. Didn't it only just start (I can never get tired of eating shmurah matzah)? I think we should petition the Rabbanim for a Pesach extension, say, to two weeks instead of one. Then at least, all the hard work would seem to go a longer way.

But I definitely feel a sadness. . ..we reached such a great height on Pesach, a spiritual 'high.' And now, like a wisp, it's gone; but we count the 49 days of the Omer, to reach another spiritual high, the giving of the Torah on Har Sinai. The sefirot (the attributes of the counting of the Omer) are significant and very meaningful, and if one takes them, day by day, to heart, they can change one's life.

The chagim, especially the shalosh regalim, take me into a different spiritual dimension. I am now looking ahead to the next one, to Shavu'ot.

That comforts me.

Listen to Rabbi Lipsker talking about this awesome time in the Jewish calendar.

Comments

Michal bas Avraham said…
I agree... it's so sad. I agree about the fact that you feel like you did all that cleaning and poof! the holiday is gone
7:59 PM
Lady-Light said…
I think I will start a petition to add a 2nd week to Pesach. If Pesach were two weeks, it would not feel so much as if we slaved for a holiday which is gone in the blink of an eye.
(Don't know how many people agree with me, though...)

Thank you for visiting.
10:22 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Great Debate: Is it Itsy Bitsy, or Inky Dinky, of Spider Fame?

Image
For the better part of a year, I've had an on-again, off-again debate with my D.H. as to the "correct" adjective in the children's finger-play nursery rhyme, "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" (now you know which one I favor). My D. H. insists that the correct descriptive is "inky dinky," whereas I demur.  I vaguely recollect from my own childhood, either hearing " itsy-bitsy spider ," or even more familiar to me, the description "eency-weency," referring to said spider's miniscule size, yet plucky persistance, and how he (she?) braved the violent rainstorm which "washed it out" after the arduous climb up the water spout, yet doggedly climbed the spout again, after the sun came out and 'dried up all the rain.' Many, if not most of our American nursery rhymes originated on the other side of the pond, in England, for obvious reasons: the American colonists were British in origin, and brought with them the culture an...
Read more

The End. Is there a Beginning...?

This is my first post back on Tikkun Olam since April 23rd, 2015. It does not feel real. Why is it that we never think we will ever have a JOLT in our lives that will change the entire life course we have been traveling? We continue on, day by day, complacent, even in the face of serious illness--believing that what we are living is the only reality; that it is immutable, that it is PHYSICAL: you can touch it, feel it, and it will continue to be there for you tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow... But it isn't. And it won't.  Because the unthinkable can, and does, happen, in time. To everybody. As it happened to me, almost a year ago, on August 10, 2015, when my DH - Dear Husband, of 46 years, died. I am living in an Alternate Universe. Because the universe in which I was living all my life until now, is gone. I still want to slap myself in the face and wake myself up. It's a dream. A terrible nightmare.  It's a horror movie with a frightening ending, but I will...
Read more

Hijab for Jewish Women?

Image
Someone used this phrase in a comment on a post about the hijab wearing Jewish women in Ramat Bet Shemesh Alef: "modern Hareidi community;" this is an oxymoron. Just for the record, I rarely agree with a Hareidi interpretation of anything. This mode of dress is just a bad interpretation of a good concept ( tzniyut ) taken to extremes. Personally, I cover my hair because I feel it increases my humility by remembering that there is a G-d above me ( not because of the reason of less attraction to men). I chose many years ago to do so; but I have come to believe a woman can be Orthodox without covering her hair all the time; just while in shul, and where it shows respect for the Torah, such as at shiurim, or where it is the preferred mode of dress, such as at yeshiva dinners and the like. But to go to the grocery? Not necessarily . I think the whole message of tzniyut is lost in those hijab cases: where will they go next? Hiding in the home and not going out? Sitting behind a cur...
Read more