Pesach Is Gone KeHeref Ayin

9:48 PM - I am still where I was for Pesach. The chag ended here, and we returned from Shul just a few minutes ago. The divrei Torah and experiences are coursing through my brain. I'm writing as quickly after the chag that I can and yet distractions (from what some view as a distraction in the first place) abound. And somehow it's become 9:59. And I'm called elsewhere...

10:08 PM - Helped my hosts a bit in the kitchen, also made them happy by committing to taking some carp home. Win win.

I heard an explanation for the name Shabbos HaGadol that appeals to me, and that I'd never heard before: On the Shabbos before Pesach things are generally cleaned away and you celebrate Shabbos without all the trimmings. It's an extra holy Shabbos because it's pared down to its essence, without all the fanfare, and can thus be a truly big Shabbos.

10:28 PM I have a ride out at 11, better pack. I'm either going home or to a post Yom Tov celebration...

11:59 plus - This post started on Tuesday night and that's how I want it to read, although it's now entering what is technically Wednesday morning. Hoping to close post before it reaches the title of a Simon and Garfunkel album.

On the first of the last days I heard something that I'd never heard before regarding Kriyat Yam Suf. That is the name we use for what happened. The name G-d uses in the Torah is bekiah. The former means tearing asunder and the latter simply connotes that it broke apart, as if on it's own. We use the more grandiose language in order to highly praise G-d. He uses the more modest terminology.

This reminds me of the idea that we call the holiday Chag HaPesach, in honor of what G-d did for us. He calls it Chag HaMatzot referring to what we did. This reminds me of the idea that G-d wears tefilin, which read, "U'mi ke'amcha Yisrael, goy echad ba'aretz." It also reminds me of the idea that G-d asked little of us other than to sigh on by putting the blood on the posts. It also reminds me of something I don't recall learning before this year - that pesach, according to Abarbanel, Ibn Ezra, and the first pshat in Rashi, means not passing over, but mercy.

There's a Slonimer vort I just heard on this past last day of Pesach regarding the repeated prayer of Vehasieinu. They connect it to the mishnah about how Rosh Chosesh was announced by a fires that were lit and passed a message on from place to place. We ask G-d to carry us on from one holiday to the next.

During Psukei DeZimra I glanced at the Artscroll commentary, which cites the Arizal's approach that zimrah means not just praise, but pruning. It is a process of cleansing ourselselves, pruning away impurities pre-Shmah/Shmoneh Esrei.

I am thinking a lot lately about thinking and remembering. It's dawned on me that in the hagaddah we don't say that we need to relive the exodus on the seder night. We say that we are supposed to relive it all the time. A good support for remembering/carrying/learning from our experiences.