Pesach

"Uh oh" I thought when I saw her browsing through the Kosher for Passover section of Albertsons. Marjorie Schneider. One of the nicest parents at Shir Tikvah.

I had run away from that job completely. I tried to take only my books, my friendship with Jennifer, and our babysitter Ilana when I left but you don't always get to choose. Especially in Portland. Especially around Passover if you go to Albertsons. Everyone at Shir Tikvah was nice and tried to be supportive when I decided to leave. It is a congregation of nice people. Marjorie was possibly the nicest.

She gave me a hug when she saw me. "We miss you!" she proclaimed her blond curls bouncing. Marjorie is young and pretty. "We are fine but we still miss you. On the first day of Sunday School we were told that from now on the kids should bring their own snack from home. This is when I knew you were really gone. You nurtured all of us, you were our mom."

"This is why you miss me?" I thought incredulously. "I was their mom?!"
I knew what she was saying though, and this is why I left that job. I couldn't be their collective Jewish mother. They loved the tidbits of Judaism that I fed them on teeny spoons. They gobbled them like the sugar coated goodies that they were. But this is neither the way that I teach nor the way that I feel about Judaism. My Judaism is more maror than charoset. It is the bitter herbs that I crave. It is also, by the way, not the way that I parent. In running away from that job I was running towards a more authentic version of myself.

As I usually do, when I run into someone that I think I don't want to see, I began to relax into the conversation. I remembered how much I truly like Marjorie and inquired about her family. We began to seem like allies trying to maneuver our way through the pre-Passover chaos at Albertsons and through life. In a different setting we would be friends.

Passover does this to me. More so than the High Holidays it seems to me a season for taking stock. Clearing out what you can no longer stomach to make room for freedom. I am surely not meant to be the Director of Congregational Learning at Shir Tikvah. Leaving that job was a modest Exodus for me. The bigger ones have yet to take place. But, slowly, the waters are gathering.

It is so much easier to see what doesn't fit than what does. Leaving for me is not hard. But my sense of direction is so easily muddled. Both in metaphor and in my real life. journeys are the hardest part. I know where I don't want to be but getting to the place that I am going feels next to impossible. Maps don't help. Clear written instructions are better but no one is offering them. Yet now there is a quiet song in my head, a raking away of old leaves that is revealing a small clearing. And maybe this is Passover.