My Jewish Journey: The Ups & Downs Of Religious Parenting

Time is a prominent theme of Pesach, but it expresses itself in a unique and somewhat puzzling manner. On Pesach, we are commanded to eat matzah (unleavened bread), while eating chametz (leavened bread) is absolutely forbidden (Sh’mos 12:15). This is an incredibly strict prohibition; the punishment for eating chametz is kareis (spiritual excision). This seems extreme, as the difference between matzah and chametz can come down to a matter of seconds. This means that a single second can decide a person’s spiritual reality, determining whether one performed a mitzvah or violated the most severe of prohibitions. Why is time so central to Pesach, and how can a single second of time have such significant implications?

“Do you think other Jewish people will be there?”

I cringed at my daughter’s loud question on the not-quite-empty train.

In 2019, one of our kids got sick with something that was difficult to diagnose. After weeks of doctor visits, trips to the ER, and a hospital stay, we got a diagnosis of exclusion, which means they’d eliminated every possible disease and condition they thought it might have been and said, “It’s probably x.” The condition they diagnosed her as (probably) having is, itself, an umbrella diagnosis for kids who present with similar symptoms but who also don’t have a clear diagnosis of something else.

This past Thursday afternoon, I stepped into the kitchen and found my nine-year-old daughter’s arm deep in a mixing bowl, a triumphant smile on her face. A box of brownie mix was beside the bowl on the counter, and so was a small glass bowl with some egg remains and a measuring spoon.