Probably like most people in Israel, I went into Pesach in a funny mood.

That manifested itself in a few noticeable ways. Like, I lost all bit of tiny patience I never had for old bags who just push in front of long queues of people. (Remember, we aren’t talking about 85+ old people, or people who clearly are physically disabled and need as much help and compassion they can get. Clearly.)

We’re talking about late 50-70-something old bags in good physical shape, who simply don’t give a monkeys about anyone else, and have a sense of entitlement that they shouldn’t have to wait the same as everyone else.

==

Erev chag, it happened at Fox, where I was trying to buy some new glasses for the Seder table.

One girl on the till, a queue of 4 people, the one girl on the till kept ‘disappearing’, who knows where. The usual. I’m standing there mostly patiently, trying to accept all this is from Hashem, because it so clearly is.

I had approached something almost akin to ‘peace of mind’ with the situation, my stress levels were dropping, I decided ‘as long as it takes, God, I will stand here patiently.’

Then, some expensively-dressed maximally-botoxed old bag showed up, claimed that ‘she’d been there all along’ while gesturing to some boxes of plates displayed on the counter, and proceeded to shove in.

The first three minutes, I was still (relatively….) calm.

But then, once a) I realised that the plates weren’t hers at all, and just part of the store display and b) she was going to quibble about every little bit of the purchase, from the points to how the stuff was wrapped – my blood started to boil.

For ten minutes, until she left, I was fighting a huge battle with myself, to not explode at her.

BH, I managed it.

==

Then, I got to the mikvah keilim.

To toivel my glasses.

Along with 5,000 other people, some of whom had all the new stuff for their seder table, some of whom were old guys with earpieces, listening to who know what, but clearly not focussing on the toivelling part of the process…

I took a deep breath, and tried so hard to be an accepting tzaddeket, who can just take all this stuff ‘with love’ and not get upset.

==

For twenty minutes I stood there, as the old guy fumbled around with the packaging, fumbled around again switching what he was listening to on his earpiece, fumbled around again, trying to remember what he’d already dunked, and what still needed to go in.

It’s a two person mikveh keilim, so together with the older guy, there was a harassed middle-aged woman, who had like, 50 plates and bowls to toivel. I felt sorry for her, it looked like a lot to do by herself.

In the meantime, the queue grew longer and longer and longer, until at least 10 people were standing there waiting, and I was the next in line, with my set of six glasses, trying to ‘accept with love’ and have ‘patience’.

==

Just as the old guy came out, two old bags marched up together, took a look at the queue – and went straight into the little room to toivel their stuff.

My  blood started boiling. One of the old bags came out two seconds later waving her new frying pan and announcing triumphantly ‘that’s it! that’s it!’ as she marched off to conquer Rome, or something.

For the next ten seconds, I waited for the other old bag to also come out again, because if they only had one pan, that would half excuse their crass and selfish behaviour.

She didn’t.

She had two big, bulky bags full of stuff, and was clearly going to be there a very long time.

==

The harassed housewife was finishing up, so I pushed into the little room, and just as Old Bag #2 took her latest load of stuff out of the dipping basket, I snatched it away and started putting my glasses in it.

Slee-cha!!!! She screeched at me, then switched to English because obviously, she was an American.

I haven’t finished yet!!!

I took a deep breath, mentally crossed off the words ‘Listen, you old bag’ in my head and then continued:

You just pushed in, in front of all these people. Now it’s your turn to have some patience, and wait for me to finish.

I tried to speak calmly, but honestly my blood was boiling. She pursed her lips and got busy repacking her stuff. It took me approximately 48 seconds to dunk my glasses and put them back in the box, and then I said Chag Sameach, as I left.

==

Outside, I sat in the car for a few minutes feeling a bit yucky, and unsure if I’d done the right thing.

On the one hand… We are meant to just accept all the humiliation and bizayon with love.

On the other hand… I am at a stage currently, perhaps because of the war, that I literally can’t stand being ‘trodden on’ by selfish narcs a second longer. And I wasn’t rude to her, I was just not prepared to pretend that her behaviour was socially acceptable.

The inner war raged on.

==

That night, we did bedikat chametz, with 10 neatly-torn pieces of old tortilla, which I then packaged up neatly in 10 little plastic bags, which I then stuffed neatly into an old Raisin Bran box I’d kept just for that purpose.

Then, we added in the 10 bits of paper with all (some…) of the spiritual chametz I wanted to burn this year.

Plus, my husband added in the wooden spoon and candle he’d used to do bedikat chametz with.

I felt a small spark of satisfaction, that even if the bonfire tomorrow was not burning strong, our little box of chametz should at least go up fairly easily, and burn to cinders.

==

The next day, we got there a little later than usual.

It had been half raining, but had now stopped. There was a guy trying to pour some petrol on a massive load of chametz that was not burning any time soon.

Every time a small flame started flickering, someone else showed up with a box of semolina, cornflakes, pittot, pasta, and smothered it out of existence again.

It was kinda depressing. Even the petrol didn’t really make a dint in the chametz mountain.

==

At the same time – I had my super-duper, neatly-packaged, just has to burn really easily chametz package, all ready to go.

My husband placed it carefully near one of the small flickering bits of flame, just waiting for it to catch, go up in flames, burn the whole box – yalla, we can say the prayer and go home feeling satisfied that we did that mitzva properly.

Of course, that’s not what happened.

==

Some guy starts muttering that there needs to be a naf-naf, something you can use to fan the pathetic fire to have some chance of it burning at least some of the chametz.

His eye lit on our box of raisin bran, which he grabbed, tipped upside down, to get all the ‘stuff’ out of it he didn’t need, had a go at us for putting a ‘plastic spoon’ in there – till he realised it was wooden – and then, started trying to use the box to naf-naf the fire.

I was a little peeved.

==

I took a deep breath, worked on accepting this with love, started to realise, THIS was the real chametz God wanted me to burn this year, all my anger, arrogance and self-righteousness, each time the plan wasn’t going to plan, and tried to chill.

We stood there for another ten minutes, as a chareidi family tried to get the fire going by pouring oil over a few cardboard boxes, and making a big effort. It didn’t really work.

Why aren’t you saying the prayer? I asked my husband.

The chametz hasn’t really burned yet, he told me.

Ours would have, if that guy had left the box alone, but now, the chametz mountain just continued to grow, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

==

That’s when I remembered the wooden broomstick at home.

It would make a great ‘fire prodding stick’.

I ran home to get it. By the time I came back, most of the crowd had gone, given up, and my husband watched bemused, as I started poking around the one little fire still trying to get started.

Give up, he told me. It’s not going to happen today.

So of course, I didn’t.

After a couple of minutes of me trying to lift up parts of the chametz mountain with the stick, so some of the air could get underneath, the fire started to burn a bit stronger.

That’s when my husband found his second wind, took the stick off me – and long story short, got about 2/3 of the chametz mountain burnt, by the time he was done.

==

We said the prayer, just as some strange Breslov-looking chassid showed up with a bottle full of oil and a few candles, to get the fire burning.

We gave him the stick, and left him to it.

==

At home, I was pondering what was the message of all this?

At least, for me?

To not give up? To not get angry? To not think that sorting ourselves out with our own little Raisin Bran box is enough, at the moment, and to understand that God wants each of us to come out of our little selfish zone, and try to see the other in the picture?

Probably, all of the above and more.

==

Back home, a bunch of my dishes slipped off the drying rack and crashed to the floor.

I managed to stay calm, with God’s help.

My daughter started making a dish 4 hours before chag that would take 5 hours to cook.

Even more incredibly, I managed to stay calm.

This is the real chametz to burn, I kept telling myself. And God was helping me find it all over the place.

==

Chag has been full of sirens, especially beyond Jerusalem, but even here, they saved a big one for the middle of the night, a couple of hours after the Seder had ended.

Of course.

And a few more yesterday, to see the chag out ‘with a ‘bang’.

Of course.

I keep thinking, God can’t let this stuff keep happening for too much longer.

Yesh Din, and Yesh Dayan.

And the bill for the Evils is coming due, very soon.

At least, I hope.