The Day Before Pesach: Chemo, B'dikat Chametz, and Birkat HaChama

Chemo Day: 9:00am-3:00pm

I have no words to thank my friend RG who spent the whole day with me, the day before Pesach!! Special thanks also to her husband, who held down the fort so she could hang with me.

Special thanks also to NT who came to pick me up when I finished... on the day before Pesach!

When I arrived home, I discovered that my two girls did about half of what I asked them to do. Which is not bad, but a little challenging when all I wanted to do was grab an hour or two of sleep.

Did I mention, it is the day before Pesach?

No nap for me!

At 2:21 am, Moshe finished B'dikat Hametz about the same time that I finished my kitchen (read: I finished everything that cannot wait until tomorrow).

My refrigerator is Kosher L'Pesach. My cabinets, ovens, drawers, and machsan (storage room) are closed for Pesach. The floor is done, again. (special thanks to my youngest!) I left a few things out, to be finished by tomorrow. And I am finally ready to go to sleep!

I have two dishwashers going and I remembered to throw my son's clothes in the washing machine, so that is going too.

By 2:30, all the kids were asleep. (thank God!)

How we are going to wake them at 5:0o in the morning is a mystery to me.

Jews around the world are excited about Birkat HaChamah tomorrow. Every 28 years, the sun is aligned exactly the way it was on the day of creation, so we go out at daybreak to say a 10 second bracha (blessing). Yes, it is that short! We say an assortment of Tehillim (Psalms) and other things so it lasts a bit longer. Otherwise you would blink and it would be over.

Moshe got it into his head that it would be totally cool to do this on Har HaBayit (The Temple Mount). I agreed that it would be cool, but thought it was insane to do it on Erev Pesach!

I told him that if he took care of all the organizing, I would go along. Then, it occured to me that my kids might also think it was an insane idea. I was prepared to let Moshe go on his own while I slept a few extra hours and took the kids to the top of our mountain with the rest of our community.

Surprise! The kids are totally into it. Even my son, who is majorly sleep deprived from his tiyul.

So, we are all getting up at 5:00 to go daven (pray) at the Kotel at the crack of dawn, 5:45 am to be exact, (with this group). After davening, there will be a siyum and a seudat mitzvah for those who need it (like Moshe, who is a bachor), and then aliyah laHar at 7:30 am.

Everyone except my youngest needed to go to the mikveh, which was no problem for me, Moshe, or our son (Moshe took him, at midnight, to Yeshivat Itri, in Beit Safafa, which has a men's mikveh that is always open). Taking my daughter was a bit more complicated, but I did it! (I'd love to blog about it, but not today....)

So, my apologies for not providing relevant links to all the references in this blog post.

It is now 3:03am. I am getting up in less than two hours.

Did I mention it is the day before Pesach?!!?



Please daven (or send happy, healing thoughts) for RivkA bat Teirtzel.

With love and optimism,
RivkA