Sara R, of Baltimore, has been making Pesach for 30 years, and by now she has it down to a science. The key, she says, is planning ahead and being organized, thinking about where you have to end up and deciding how you are going to get there.
“Get a calendar and work backwards,” says Mrs. R, whose Pesach cleaning schedule begins around Tu B’Shevat. “Your start time should depend upon how busy your household is, whether or not you work outside the house, how many children you have, and how much time you will need.”
“First, decide which day you want to start cooking, then plan to clean the kitchen a few days before you cook. Plan to clean the dining room a few days before that. You have to be realistic, though, regarding how much time you have and how long it takes to clean. For example, if you are working full time, you may need to allow more time.” She advises against scheduling your pre-Pesach chores very tightly, to allow for emergencies and catch up time.
Although she has her methods for eliminating pre-Pesach stress, Mrs. R admits that there is just no way of getting around all the work you need to do to make Pesach. If you can get help, she says, that’s great. Saving her shopping list from year to year, so she will know what she needs, is also a time saver. She also saves her recipes and menus. New clothing bought in honor of Pesach is bought Purim time. And she cleans out her Pesach food cabinets by Purim, when many Pesach foods are on sale, so she can buy them in advance.
Despite the fact that Mrs. R’s organization skills minimize her pre-Pesach stress level, she realizes that not everyone is like her. “Some people thrive on that last minute adrenaline rush,” says Mrs. R. “It’s their style, and the way they operate.”
This year, the only pre-Pesach stress the R family will experience is packing for their flight to London, where they will spend Pesach with their newlywed daughter, her husband, and his family.
You Shmooze, You Lose!
Another veteran Pesach maker agreed to be interviewed on the condition that I not mention her name. “Mrs. Clean” limits her shmoozing on the telephone between Purim and Pesach in order to more efficiently prepare for Yom Tov, and she is afraid that going public will cause people to call her and set her behind schedule. She happens to be a big believer in everyone doing her own thing and not making anyone else nervous by saying things like: “You didn’t start cooking yet? I have half my freezer filled with things I’ve baked and cooked already!”
Mrs. Clean advises against scaring your friend or making her nervous by asking, ‘What are you up to?’ Everyone has her own routine and knows what works for her. “Remember,” she says, “making Pesach is a bit like making Shabbos. Some of our friends have their tables set and the aroma of chicken soup cooking on Thursday. Others of us do not. Somehow, however, we all make Shabbos on time.
Clean Advice
Here is Mrs. Clean’s advice: First, she says, limit eating to the kitchen and dining room. This is a lifestyle habit that ideally should be enforced year round. Being vigilant about it restricts food to these areas exclusively. This is a good discipline for toddlers and teenagers, alike, and creates good eating habits. Students eating in their bedrooms while studying leads to excessive, unnecessary, and unhealthy eating.
Second, Mrs. Clean feels that people have to differentiate between spring cleaning and chometz cleaning, and not confuse the two. If a person wants to do spring cleaning in conjunction with Pesach, it should be done before Purim. Once Purim comes, it is too late to spring clean. By the way, she insists that her family members not put items of clothing back into closets or drawers after wearing them. This eliminates the probability of chametz in those places.
“Cleaning for Pesach is really a year-long training,” says Mrs. Clean. Her mother begins her Pesach cleaning Chanukah time. Each week she cleans one room to get ready for Yom Tov. “I don’t have the kind of lifestyle or time that my mother has. I’m too busy working outside the home, doing errands, and driving carpools.”
Asking your rav for guidelines is another bit of advice from Mrs. Clean. “If you sell your chametz, you don’t need to get into every nook and cranny of your mixer that you are locking up anyway. Your refrigerator is a different story. You just might have to go at it with toothpicks.” Her motto is “What’s chametz is chametz, and what is dust can sit and wait.”
Mrs. Clean keeps a shopping list from the previous Pesach. Each year after Pesach she updates it, depending upon changing family needs and wants. “This way you know what you need. It’s easier to go into the supermarket focused.” She sets aside a room in her house that is clean to store advance Pesach purchases, long before her kitchen is clean.
“I think people get a little carried away with the food,” says Mrs. Clean. “They cook a month before in their ‘Pesach kitchen,’ even though the real chametz isn’t really out of the house yet.” Even when emergencies come up, you can always cook on Yom Tov, she says. On the other hand, you cannot clean over Yom Tov, and nobody can clean for you. Mrs. Clean knows from what she speaks. She gave birth to two of her babies before Pesach!
Mrs. Clean marvels how one of her friends baked ten cakes for Pesach. When she asked her why she baked so many for one week, when, in the course of a regular week she would not ordinarily eat so many, the friend answered, “There is nothing to eat otherwise!” Baruch Hashem, says Mrs. Clean, she does without so much cake in the house, and her large household has enough basic food to eat for that one week. “Sometimes simple is elegant,” says Mrs. Clean, regarding Yom Tov food preparation. “It’s nice to have lots of fancy food, but if it is an added burden to make, you can serve things like fresh fruit, and you won’t starve.”
As things get down to the wire with the kitchen clean up, Mrs. Clean “quarantines” an area of the house and moves her microwave and toaster oven there. She does this mainly to accommodate her older children, who need more than a rice cake diet. “Once my kitchen is finished,” says Mrs. Clean, “I feel like the weight of the world has been removed from my shoulders. I find that the cooking is nothing compared to the cleaning. I’m not a deep freezer type of person.”
Mrs. Clean lets her weekly cleaning help do her preliminary cleaning for Pesach. The crew cleans the stove and refrigerator in the first go around; then she inspects the nooks and crannies. Once her kitchen has passed inspection, she prefers to cook at night, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., without interruption from the inhabitants and visitors to her revolving-door house. “It’s a personality thing,” says Mrs. Clean. “I know my threshold and tolerance level, how I can work best.
“Especially with kids in your house, you don’t want them to resent that one week before Pesach, and have an unpleasant feeling about Yom Tov. Keep things as normal as possible. Include them in the preparation, but don’t burn them out. You want them to have fond memories of Pesach.”
Being Realistic about Stress
Rebbetzin Bracha Goldberger feels that there is no such thing as a stress-free Pesach. “I think we are being very American, having a fantasy of having a very organized, stress-free life. I think we sometimes have incredible, unrealistic expectations of a perfect life.
“We need to be fair and responsible to ourselves,” says Rebbetzin Goldberger. “I don’t really like the word stress. People tend to view it in an unhealthy light. While we seek to reduce stress in our lives, it’s important to distinguish between stress and change. While change and forward movement are constant goals for a Jew, I fear we experience change as stress.
“Life is not a constant, and we cannot make it a constant,” she adds. “We are looking for life to be a constant, meaningful thing, but we can’t. Hashem did not make it that way. To make our lives easier, we need to give up the futile attempt at controlling it. Pesach, for example, is a time that will require a lot of our time and energy, which will have to come from our willingness to make changes, if we want to do this with less stress. We need to make choices, and that might mean less time devoted to work, a hobby, or any other involvement, in order to have the time and energy to devote to making Pesach. We may have to ask for help from the kids or pay for help. We need to be less needy of being in control. It’s okay; Hashem is right there with us.
“Life is about change, and being a Jew is about change,” says the Rebbetzin. “Pesach itself comes at a time of the year when growth and change are evident, as spring bursts forth around us. We are constantly working on ourselves and working on change. When preparing for Pesach, forget the stress. Instead, let’s open up ourselves to change. Of course, this is easier said than done. It’s the work of a lifetime.”
©Margie Pensak – 2007
