It was a beautiful spring morning in the beginning of April. A light breeze was causing a chill in the otherwise warm seventy degree weather. The freshly bloomed flowers were in perfect contrast to the amazingly blue sky. The chirping of the birds were like thunders in the uncharacteristically quiet Erev Pesach morning. This is the metropolis of Zipori in the year 2034; a city usually filed with the hustling and bustling of business, friendly chatter, the elegant songs of prayer and study emanating from the rabbinical academy and the usual communal affairs. But today is different; most of the city’s occupants have traveled to Jerusalem to bring the sacrificial Paschal lamb and other sacrifices to the Holy temple, and to spend the festive holiday in the presence of the king Messiah.
I would’ve opted to sleep leisurely well into the afternoon, rather then having to go out into the empty streets of this semi-deserted town, being the only one who isn’t able to experience the bliss that everyone else seemed to get naturally. My wife Bruryah woke me abruptly from my peaceful slumber, reminding me urgently that it’s almost time to burn the chametz. As I was getting dressed I asked my wife, do you remember the good old days in Williamsburg when we were barely married, the streets were so alive with all the hustle and bustle on Erev Pesach, starting early morning with people running to pray so that they can still eat some chametz, then the chametz bonfires on every corner, then rushing to mikva and to bake matzohs on Broadway? Yes, answered Bruryah, but I also remember how indifferent you were even back then, you were never part of the excitement, you were always like an outsider peeking into other people’s parties.
She is right, I thought to myself as I was tying my shoes. Even as a twenty year old I was different than most of my friends and neighbors. Even though I dressed like the typical chasidic jew, and even though I felt very comfortable being part of the broader chasidic community, I never quite felt as one of them. I could never identify with their infatuation with rabbis, asking them what to do and how to go about every tiny matter, regardless how difficult or simple and no matter how much experience the rabbi had in that particular field. I could never feel the excitement and emotion that my friends could bring themselves to feel just by the slightest insight read in the chasidic literature or heard from a their Rabbi, neither could I succumb to blind acceptance of any decree, halachic or otherwise given by the rabbi’s and leaders of that day. Last but not least, I couldn’t understand their unnatural belief in legendary promises and mythical stories to no end.
But all will be different once the Messiah comes, I thought then. But it isn’t any different at all. Here I am again, watching how almost all the families on my block packed up their belongings onto their vehicle and traveled to Jerusalem for the holiday, while I stayed here with barely a minyan Jewish families, to celebrate the holiday in Zipori.
Why didn’t you go Chananya, my wife asked? How could I afford to go, I responded? I barely earn enough money to feed our family, let alone pay for our children’s marriages. I don’t know how all the others afford to make this trip year after year. The Ben-Azai family next door, the husband is a simple school rebbe, the wife is a stay at home mom, but somehow he has money to travel three times a year to Jerusalem and every summer they go to the country for half a summer. You know that the Holy Rabbi Yehudah guaranteed that God will repay all the expenses incurred by coming to Jerusalem for the holidays, including all the sacrifices that we bring in God’s honor, my wife argued. Well, Rabbi Tachlifa says the same about the expenses incurred in the honor of the Sabbath, have we ever seen any of that come true, I retorted? Chananya sweety, the problem is that you don’t really believe that it will happen, if only you’d truly believe.
How does one do that? How does one make themselves truly believe? I wonder, I’ve always wondered and I probably will wonder forever till the end of days.
Boroparker 