Passover: Dread or Dream?

I was walking down Avenue J in Flatbush, when an ominous-looking young man approached me. He wore a black ski-hat, tight jeans and a black leather jacket. The dude had chip-on-a-shoulder angry-looking eyes as if he was looking for trouble. He looked like a member of some Brooklyn or Bronx gang. He was coming straight at me and maybe he thought that the white-bearded old man in the long black coat (me!)would be easy prey; at least, that was the scenario that played in my head. Instinctively from back in the old days, my mind quickly began reviewing contingency plans: if he pulls a knife with his right hand, I’ll do such-and-such; if he throws a left, then I’ll react with…
 
When he only a few feet in front of me, the look on his face softened. His heavy Yiddish-accented English was the last thing I’d expect to hear from the mouth of someone who looked the way he did. “Reb Lazer, I heard you wuz in town. My name’s Yankie – I’m a friend of Yitzie, you know, one of the Williamsburg guys that went off the derech (path) and then discovered Rav Arush and you. Gotta a minute for me?”
 
As soon as my red-alert surge of Adrenalin subsided, I answered, “Sure thing!” Yankie, formally named “Yaacov”, was obviously reaching out. I had a feeling that Hashem had sent me to the USA just for him. It turned out that he was the son of a prominent Williamsburg Chassid from a respected family of rabbis and scholars.
 
“Sure thing, Yankie. Come walk with me.” My head made an instantaneous transformation from its danger-preparedness mode to the much more pleasant listen-empathy mode. I had been in the middle of a personal-prayer session during a sunny winter-morning walk. I silently said, “Excuse me, Hashem – You sent me this obviously special soul; we can continue our discussion later…”
 
I gave my undivided attention to Yankie. He began an alarming monologue that took us all the way to Avenue U. His every childhood memory associated with Judaism was a painful one.
 
“I hate Pesach (Passover), Rabbi. My mother would yell at me nonstop. I hated carrying up the boxes with the Passover dishes from the cellar. Cellars in Brooklyn are dark and infested with rats. I was eight years old and my father would hit me for not bringing up the boxes. I was scared stiff to go down there alone, but he didn’t care. Why didn’t anybody understand me? Oh yeh, and when I was twelve, my father found a piece of chametz-digge (non-Kosher for Passover) bubble gum in my bedroom right before Pesach. I got murdered, whipped with his belt. You’d have thought that he was the Narc Squad catching me with a million bucks worth of cocaine. I hated Pesach and hated Judaism. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to throw it all away, and that’s just what I did on my 16th birthday.”
 
For the last six or seven years, Yankie had been sharing an apartment with four other young man just like him, doing odd jobs during the day and partying at night. And, when a Chassidic boy from Brooklyn falls off the path, he really falls, as many pushers and ladies-of-the-night in South Bronx can testify.
 
Why did Hashem have me encounter Yankie? That’s a no-brainer – so I could write this article…
 
But in all seriousness, don’t we all have something in common with Yankie’s father and mother? Don’t many of us forget about the significance of Passover – the joy and the freedom – and stress the stringencies? Do we sacrifice our children’s souls for the sake of a dust-free museum-like Kosher-for-Passover home?
 
Anger, especially anger at our loved ones, is the worst form of chametz (leavened bread and derivatives, forbidden during Passover). The chametz in the cupboards is much easier to clean than the chametz in our hearts.
 
Passover should be a child’s dream – the eye-opening story of our Exodus from Egypt, the four questions, and a special gift after the exciting efforts to steal that little piece of matza – the afikomen – without which Daddy can’t complete the Seder. But as soon as we turn the joy of Judaism into a hellfire-and-brimstone ritual, Heaven forbid, we are pushing our children away with our own two hands. No wonder Rebbe Nachman so severely implored us to avoid stringencies all year round, and especially on Passover (see Rebbe Nachman’s Discourses, 235).
 
Judaism is joy, so if it’s not joy, it’s not Judaism.
 
Let’s not turn Passover from dream to dread. If we want our children to love Passover, we must make it a loving and enjoyable experience for them. We’re all extremely cautious about packing and unpacking the Passover porcelain and the crystal wine goblets; let’s be as equally cautious with our children’s souls.

Happy Passover!