""In our knowledge" - that's what I call it.
When I call him.
This acquaintance of ours is famous in the community as someone who takes the easy as the hard. In fact, the word "kola" with its inflections and seven constructions is foreign to him.
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And if this is the case all year round, then on Passover, our acquaintance adds severity to his severity. With the beginning of the first month of Nissan, our acquaintance enters a bubble filled with slurs and subtleties. Our acquaintance's family members are accustomed to these days, before Passover, to staying away from their father, the Lord of Death - to severity, of course. "He is allergic to leaven" - they will explain to themselves.
And so the days pass and Passover approaches. Our acquaintance thoroughly cleaned everything that moved in the house. Every speck of dust in the blinds and under the beds has already been prepared for Passover.
One by one, our acquaintance's pants are found from the closet onto the balcony. With exemplary skill and diligence, he pulls out pocket after pocket and brushes out every stitch and every unruly thread with his toothbrush. He cleans the brush with another brush, and the last one he burns in a fire of leaven with the lulav of Sukkot and the wicks of Hanukkah.
The wall clock hanging in the kitchen - decorated with illustrations of wheat and ears of grain - is being led out of respect to the carton of leaven. The one that will soon be sold to Ahmed. Or Muhammad. Or Mahmoud. It doesn't really matter to him, the main thing is that it won't be Ahmed Ben Sarah.
The night of the chametz test has arrived. Our acquaintance rolls up his sleeves, lights the candle, grabs the feather, recites the blessing, and, kneeling - which would not shame those who "kneel and bow" on Yom Kippur - bends over towards the floor and crawls into the holes and cracks.
The sale of chametz the next morning was made by the Lithuanian Motz, the Sephardic Dayan, and the Hasidic Posk. As with the reading of "Zachor," our informant also practices not to discriminate against any party in the sale of chametz. "What is certain" - he reassures himself.
Seder night.
""Ha Lachma Aniya" begins our teacher reading the Haggadah, while in the same breath he clarifies to his children that "Lachma" refers to "matzah." "To eliminate any association of chametz" - he reasoned with wisdom and common sense.
The part "Every night we eat leaven and matzah" in "What Has Changed" - he would have preferred to have heard from his eldest son. "Hess from mentioning leaven there" - his associates knew.
As if frozen, the blessing "He who brings forth bread" over matzah was a blessing. If one of our sages had known, there is no doubt that he would have decreed the blessing "on eating matzah" throughout the days of the holiday. Even in the blessing for food, a shiver ran through him every time he mentioned "He who gives bread to all flesh.".
During all the days of Passover, he was careful not to eat anywhere else. He could barely swallow his saliva when he was outside his home.
Once, our acquaintance received a telegram in the midst of Hol HaMoed.
The sender was his old friend who had recently emigrated abroad. He read the letter with great pleasure, when suddenly his face turned red. The foreign friend chose to end his words with the words - Happy Hametz. Our acquaintance, of course, immediately cut off contact with "this Hametz" - as he defined it. All his wife's explanations were of no use, because the friend actually meant the acronym for "Happy Matzot Holiday.".
""Ay.
The second holiday of Passover, or the seventh of Passover, had just begun. The burn burned his hand and caused him to drop the bag of rolls he had managed to grab in the haste of the Egyptians.
Our acquaintance, as you already understood, is one of those who prays the evening prayer of the beginning of the holiday in the square of the neighborhood bakery. With the zeal of holiness, after the seven days of lack of leaven - in thought, speech and eating, he allowed himself to bring to his home, to his relatives and friends, warm and fresh rolls that were sown, watered, harvested, stacked, ground and baked after Passover.
Perhaps the descriptions here about our acquaintance were not and were not created. But the burn was. Was created. And leaves a scar every year.
