Plain Beautiful and Worthy

As a professional baker, the sight of my dough double in size is one that sparks joy for me every time I bake.

Watching bread pouf up in the oven gives me a feeling of satisfaction.

An indication of a good product or at least being on the right track to a good product.

Now that Im cleaning out the house of Chametz, the very thing I produce week by week for business, it makes me think.

Chametz this time of the year, while we celebrate our Freedom from Slavery, is being compared to the Yetzer Hara. We get rid of it.

And in its place we eat Matza, a super flat bread, if you can even call it that way.

Why though, you might think. This is the festival of freedom we are talking about.

We were freed from slavery, taken out from bitter exile by Gd Himself.

Wouldn’t that call for a party with some fresh loaves of fluffy goodness at the table center at the least?

Furthermore if it states that the dough didn’t have time to rise at the time the jews went out of Egypt, it must be that while they were still there, in their depression, they were used to fluffier bread that did have time to ferment.

In that case wouldn’t it be more appropriate for us to celebrate the salvation with something more elevated than what they were having there?

Here is my thought.

When our forefathers rushed out of Egypt, there was no time. The dough was clearly not important. They were being freed. They had to go. It didn’t matter.

Matter of fact, they weren’t going to eat that bread for too long anyways. They were soon being fed heavenly food that they had to do nothing for.

At this point Im getting inspired.

As trauma survivors we have become so good.

So darn good at work to the point where we can’t stop working in the fear of being a Nobody.

Amazing at caring for others to the point where our own well being doesn’t even matter anymore.

Great at making everything look perfect and polished, in order that all will be fine and dandy and bad things never have to ever happen again. Not to us and not to our children.

All in the effort to keep it together. To protect ourselves from what is behind all of this.

Our humanness. Our plainness.

It was not allowed when we grew up. When we expressed it, we got called names, were mocked and punished.

We learned too long ago that being human even for just a moment was a dangerous thing.

We unlearned how being human is done altogether. Our nervous system got reprogrammed.

For our protection. For our good.

Until it wasn’t anymore.

Until it turned into crippling anxiety, cycles of never feeling good enough and depression.

If we celebrate our freedom from Egypt through eating ‘’bread of the poor’’, maybe this is the way through which freedom is really achieved, without the glitz and glam.

How about this Pessach we allow ourselves to show up just as we are without all the added ‘’extra’’?

Wouldn’t that be freeing?

It is time we realize that our mere being is as perfect as it gets.

So as we send the remnants of Chametz to be burned this Erev Pessach, let’s add in all that fluff that has been fermenting inside of us all this time, taking the place of our truly beautiful and free selfs.

Heres to Freedom and true Healing!

Pessach kasher vesameach.

SK