[img]96|left|Shachar||no_popup[/img]Dateline Jerusalem — My apartment is an obstacle course in the making. Pesach (Passover) is Coming, and this time of year is spring cleaning to the nth degree. Only one room is finished because a lot of things were thrown in bags to sift through at a later date. I have help in the process. But two days were spent putting together cabinets for the bathroom, cabinets that the guy at the store said I could do by myself.

My apartment bathroom has no cabinets. Although I have survived for the last 3 1/2 years without them, there is no way I can do it any more. The mirror medicine cabinet (that really isn't a cabinet) is now velcroed shut to keep the mirror doors from crashing to the floor. I had to take everything out. Not only does the bathroom not have cabinets, it does not have an electrical outlet to plug in anything. It is a good thing I no longer use a hair dryer. I imagine my electric bill would be a lot lower if I could use a night light instead of keeping the light on for 25 hours straight during Shabbat.

My apartment has no cabinets, except a few in the kitchen, and no closets. My clothes hang in an armoire. I use one bedroom as storage. It is about the size of the walk-in closet in my old home. I have been told I have a large apartment by Israeli standards!

Thinking of Saving

This year I have decided it is less expensive to order catered meals for the holiday than it is to cook. All I have to do is heat them up. Usually I spend an absolute fortune on food and supplies just for the one week Passover holiday. I am not even having the seder at my home. I have been invited elsewhere. I remember the good ol' days when a seder meant having 30 to 35 family and friends per meal at my home in the states. In those days, I did all the cooking. Here in Israel, I have yet to give a seder. I have already been invited to six seders, and in Israel we only have a seder the first night. Not like it is in the states where there are two nights of seder.

This year I had lots of paper and plastic goods left over and packed away in my Pesach cartons from last year. I think this year I might actually be able to afford the holiday. Of course, it is costing me to hire helpers. With my bad arm, there is no way I can do all the lifting and cleaning myself.

This time of year there are bargains galore at the stores and markets. At one of the supermarkets there was a sale on vacuums, microwaves, toaster ovens and stove tops. Since items for Pesach are supposed to be different than those used the rest of the year, many people buy new items and then pack them away until next year. I often buy and then end up using the items after the holiday and then have to buy them again the following year. One of these days I will learn.

I have lost about 5 poundsws so far because instead of normal meals, I have been “noshing” on non-Passover foods so that I won't have any left in my home during the holiday. Because I am of Ashkenazi descent, not Sefardi (from Spain, Portugal and the Mediterranean), I cannot eat corn, beans, legumes, rice, etc. during Pesach. The Sefardi allow it. None of us is permitted bread or flour. We eat matzo, a flat cracker like unleavened “bread” that does not rise, reminding us of the Exodus from Egypt when Moses told Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”

For thousands of years, at Seders all over the world, we all end the evening saying “Next year in Jerusalem,” a return from exile to our homeland given to us by Hashem (G-d). This year it really has significance because of the latest attempts by Arabs, Palestinians, the European Union, the United Nations, and countries all over the world to exile us from Jerusalem once again.

L'hitraot. Shachar