Pessah is upon us

By ANN KLEINBERG

AH, the joys of Passover preparation. For anyone celebrating this holiday with some semblance of observance, the arrangements necessary to ready the house often seem like another plague. As I scan my brain for personal recollections, I can almost feel the backaches coming on. Not to speak of the aching feet and steel- wooled hands. Are we even considering a manicure? Forget it.

THE preparations start with shopping. Huge quantities of stuff need to invade your home — and they must stay in the bags, away from the hametz products of your everyday life. In the home I grew up in it started with cleaning products, shelving paper, aluminum foil and potatoes — don’t ask me what those were for.

Counters have to be scrubbed, scrubbed again and then totally covered with aluminum foil. Range burners have to be disinfected to the point of nearly burning down the house. And then you have to cover them, too, with tinfoil. Ovens have to be stripped bare, down to the primary coat of enamel. Refrigerators have to be totally emptied. (Ah, so that’s where I left the sun-dried tomatoes!) And they too have to be scrubbed down. Best if you just throw it out and buy a new frig.

Every crumb that has ever entered your home must be searched out and zapped. Nuke ’em if you can — just get them out of there. Because then, on the eve of the first night of Pessah when you conduct the bedikat hametz ceremony, there must not be even microscopic evidence left of the nasty leavened products. Except, of course, for the big chunks that you hide and then have to find with a feather and a candle. (I loved that hide-and-seek part).

Every shelf you intend to use during the holiday has to be covered. Wax paper was the covering of choice in my youth. And every shelf that you don’t intend to use must be covered, wrapped, hermetically sealed — whatever — just so long as you don’t see what’s sitting on it.

AND then, after you’ve shlepped up hundreds of heavy cartons from the basement — all illegibly marked — and unwrapped all the dishes, cutlery, pots, pans, utensils, etc that you will use for exactly one week, you get to put it all away — in the newly covered drawers, cabinets and shelves. I am telling you right now — and anyone who wants to disagree with me — just go ahead, this is the hardest holiday of all and it always falls on a woman’s shoulders. Do you think that God decided he would test every modern day woman to see how devoted she is — by making her shlep, scrub, cover, wrap and unpack?

BUT there’s good news. You get to buy new lipstick. That was the treat in my home, new lipstick (I was always considered too young to wear it but Pessah brought an opportunity to enjoy Yardley Happy Pink). You also get new toothpaste (kosher, of course), new toothbrushes and best of all — new clothes. That meant a trip to the Lower East Side in New York to Berent & Smith — every Jewish female’s favorite clothing store where you were nobody if you didn’t get to pick up a few designer numbers for a great discounted price. And new patent leather shoes. Ooh, I loved these holiday preparations.

AND there were lots of fun food products that I adored (even though we were supposed to be making do with less during these times). There was Horowitz-Margareten chocolate chip cookies, for instance. I think the main ingredient was talcum powder, but I loved them. And there was chocolate-covered matzo and Bartons chocolates and ice cream (that was a really special treat). And almond kisses and macaroons and chocolate covered jellies and chocolate covered orange rinds (Why do people like those?). Now that I think of it, Pessah was a chocoholic’s dream of a holiday. And it was fun.

ON one hand I can’t stand the thought of so many women/people having to go through the difficult preparations this holiday requires. Isn’t the fact that one has to eat matza for an entire week enough? If you’re Sephardi at least you get to eat rice and legumes (and I have it on good authority from a "converted" Ashkenazi woman that in general Sephardic food, especially on Pessah, is better).

But perhaps all the fuss and hellish preparations make the holiday feel like a more special time. And maybe all this food one is "forced" to eat is really an enjoyable part of the ritual. And maybe that refrigerator really did need cleaning out. Good luck — I’m thinking of you.