“Seder”1 min read

There are few nights approached with as many expectations as the first night of Pesach. We prepare, we dream, we learn, we plan, we buy engaging haggados (and fine wine) for the adults and props and candies for the kids.

Surely, everyone will be perfectly behaved. Surely, everything will proceed exactly in accordance with our ideal vision.

It doesn’t stop you from assuming this year will be different, but you’ve been around long enough now to know that it’s quite likely things won’t work out as you hoped. Wine will spill all over the table and stain your pristine kittel. Your divrei Torah will be interrupted. You won’t get to use your favorite haggadah. The kids will be too shy to sing the Mah Nishtanah. A full-blown fit will be thrown by a little boy or girl who would have rather acted out “tzfardeah” than “choshech”. You will spend half the seder putting the kids to bed. The marror won’t be as hot as you thought it would be. Your daughter will demand on reading every single devar Torah from her 500 page Pesach notebook. “Gebrokts” is a dirty word in your house on Pesach, but your son will immediately dunk his matzah right in the soup. Despite your best intentions, it won’t be physically possible for you to drink a l’chatchilah shiur for your fourth cup. You will fall asleep before ‘Chad Gadya’. Your door will jam by ‘Shfoch chamascha’. The ‘Shabbos Goy’ called to unplug an overheated Shabbos lamp will walk into your perfectly chometz-free home carrying the burger he just purchased at McDonalds. Your minhag is to eat radish for karpas and your in-laws will eat potato. You won’t be familiar with their tunes. Even worse, no one will seem even remotely interested in learning your elter zeide’s chazzanus for ‘V’hi She’amdah’.

Stop for a minute.

Isn’t it wonderful that the Torah was given to human beings, and not angels?

Close your eyes and remember:

It’s about Hashem. It’s about trying our best, not for us, but for Him.

This might be your b’dieved, but it is His l’chatchilah.

You call it chaos.

He calls it “Seder.”