A philosophical question: Is it harder to wait for the beginning or the end? Was it more difficult to wait for your first bite of matzah than for your first bite of chametz last night?
Tonight, we sit at our Shabbat table with two full loaves of challah. After a week of consuming unleavened products and flat pieces of matzah, we are quick to reintroduce chametz into our diet. Yet, it goes beyond food. How quickly do we bring back the spiritual chametz, forgetting that we just journeyed from slavery to freedom. Fortunately, we have started on another journey, from freedom to redemption. In just over a month, we will once again congregate; this time, at the foot of Mount Sinai, ready to accept the Torah as the constitution of our people. What chametz will be bring to that moment? Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein teaches that harmonizing values which are in tension is of prime importance to the spiritual life of a Jew. Let us be cautious in how the pendulum swings from matzah to chametz just as we were meticulous in how we went from finding the smallest piece of crumbs in our homes.
As my child happily shouted last night, “Let’s go to the chametz factory!” I kindly reminded him….”Let’s walk slowly. It will be still be there when we arrive.”
