Abba Cokes up the House for Pesach
Abba cleans for Pesach
My name is Yehonatan Levi. I am nine years old and I live with my parents Malka and Mordechai, three brothers and two sisters in Yerushalayim. We live in a neighborhood called Givat Shaul. I like it very much because I have my school and all my friends just around the corner from our house.
My Abba studies Torah and works for a catering company. He loves to cook but he works mostly with papers with lots of numbers on them. Ima is at home most of the time. She helps many children that come to our home with their homework in mathematics.
Both my parents like to talk about numbers and order. They have a special game of numbers that we play whenever we go on a longer car trip to visit relatives. Abba says a number and then we have to tell where it is in the Torah and we have to find as many places as possible.
My parents always do the Pesach cleaning together, carefully planning it in advance and giving each of us kids a task in the house. Abba even takes a few days of vacation from his work to be a part of the cleaning. We usually do the Pesach cleaning to a lot of great Chassidic music because Abba says that it is a mitzvah to do it with joy. I like to help because we usually laugh a lot and many times I find things I thought I had lost.
Last year Abba and I were going to clean the floors together. Ima had bought a special Kosher for Pesach cleaning soap called A-Jacks. The floors were easy enough to clean. The hard part was all the corners, spaces behind radiators and the baseboards that had collected a lot of dust. The bottle of A-Jacks didn't last us long because Abba decided that for the tricky parts we would simply smear it on without mixing it with water. The dust seemed to stick better to our cleaning shmattes this way. Despite the great smell of A-Jacks filling the house Ima didn't look quite as satisfied with our work.
Mordechai, A-Jacks is quite expensive. You're supposed to mix it with water also for the corners. Now you will have to go around the house again to remove the sticky left-over.
Abba promised to remove all the A-Jacks we had left behind and to get a new bottle of soap for the rest of the cleaning.
I didn't mind too much to have to go around again with a wet shmatte. After all I knew that when things become a bit difficult it only means that something good is about to happen. Maybe I was about to get some new klaffim (picture cards) of Tzaddikim. I already had a good sized collection of these cards but there were still plenty of Rabbis I was looking for.
Abba finished the floors the next day without my help. I had to go to school and then I went with Ima to help her with some food shopping. When we came home we found Abba in the kitchen pouring Soli-Cola on the kitchen table!
When he saw us standing in the doorway to the kitchen he shouted excitedly to Ima:
Watch this Malka! This Cola is kosher for Pesach and just as sticky as the A-Jacks. But a bottle of Soli-Cola costs 2 shekels and a bottle of A-Jacks 20!
I was sure that Ima was going to tell Abba that Soli-Cola is for drinking and not for cleaning with. Instead she said:
Mordechai, that's a tenth of the price of A-Jacks. How did you ever come to think of cleaning with cola?
Abba explained that as he had removed the sticky A-Jacks from the corners it struck him how similar it was to Soli-Cola. Ima seemed to think that this was correct because she just nodded her head with a thoughtful look on her face.
I thought to myself that a great soft-drink such as Soli-Cola has absolutely nothing in common with the A-Jacks cleaning soap but I know that my parents are usually right so I didn't say anything. I was just very surprised that Ima did not point out this obvious fact.
Later that same evening I was cleaning my books on the balcony. I turned each page carefully checking for any crumbs. I didn't find many but it looked liked all of the sandy dust of Yerushalayim had made it into my bookshelf during the year.
All the dust made me very thirsty so I took a break to go and get a drink in the kitchen. I knew we had Soli-Cola, because I had seen Ima put it in our cart earlier at the supermarket, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Maybe my siblings had already finished what was left over after Abba's cleaning and the new bottles from the supermarket. I called out to Ima:
Ima, where is the Soli-Cola?
She answered me from the hallway
Not in your teeth dear!
I could not believe my eyes when I looked into the hallway. Ima was pouring Soli-Cola in her cleaning bucket!
We didn't have any Soli-Cola for our Seder that year but I did get new klaffim of Tzaddikim. Ima got them for me when we were out walking just the two of us during Chol Hamoed. I still found it very strange that she had agreed to clean the house with cola so I decided to ask her why when we were all alone.
Ima why did you use Soli-Cola for the cleaning before Pesach? Please, tell me the truth.
Ima looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and she answered with a smile.
-You see, in a family and everywhere else too, we must do our best to respect and not to embarrass each other. Keeping the Shalom is so important even if it means cleaning the house with Soli-Cola.
My name is Yehonatan Levi. I am nine years old and I live with my parents Malka and Mordechai, three brothers and two sisters in Yerushalayim. We live in a neighborhood called Givat Shaul. I like it very much because I have my school and all my friends just around the corner from our house.
My Abba studies Torah and works for a catering company. He loves to cook but he works mostly with papers with lots of numbers on them. Ima is at home most of the time. She helps many children that come to our home with their homework in mathematics.
Both my parents like to talk about numbers and order. They have a special game of numbers that we play whenever we go on a longer car trip to visit relatives. Abba says a number and then we have to tell where it is in the Torah and we have to find as many places as possible.
My parents always do the Pesach cleaning together, carefully planning it in advance and giving each of us kids a task in the house. Abba even takes a few days of vacation from his work to be a part of the cleaning. We usually do the Pesach cleaning to a lot of great Chassidic music because Abba says that it is a mitzvah to do it with joy. I like to help because we usually laugh a lot and many times I find things I thought I had lost.
Last year Abba and I were going to clean the floors together. Ima had bought a special Kosher for Pesach cleaning soap called A-Jacks. The floors were easy enough to clean. The hard part was all the corners, spaces behind radiators and the baseboards that had collected a lot of dust. The bottle of A-Jacks didn't last us long because Abba decided that for the tricky parts we would simply smear it on without mixing it with water. The dust seemed to stick better to our cleaning shmattes this way. Despite the great smell of A-Jacks filling the house Ima didn't look quite as satisfied with our work.
Mordechai, A-Jacks is quite expensive. You're supposed to mix it with water also for the corners. Now you will have to go around the house again to remove the sticky left-over.
Abba promised to remove all the A-Jacks we had left behind and to get a new bottle of soap for the rest of the cleaning.
I didn't mind too much to have to go around again with a wet shmatte. After all I knew that when things become a bit difficult it only means that something good is about to happen. Maybe I was about to get some new klaffim (picture cards) of Tzaddikim. I already had a good sized collection of these cards but there were still plenty of Rabbis I was looking for.
Abba finished the floors the next day without my help. I had to go to school and then I went with Ima to help her with some food shopping. When we came home we found Abba in the kitchen pouring Soli-Cola on the kitchen table!
When he saw us standing in the doorway to the kitchen he shouted excitedly to Ima:
Watch this Malka! This Cola is kosher for Pesach and just as sticky as the A-Jacks. But a bottle of Soli-Cola costs 2 shekels and a bottle of A-Jacks 20!
I was sure that Ima was going to tell Abba that Soli-Cola is for drinking and not for cleaning with. Instead she said:
Mordechai, that's a tenth of the price of A-Jacks. How did you ever come to think of cleaning with cola?
Abba explained that as he had removed the sticky A-Jacks from the corners it struck him how similar it was to Soli-Cola. Ima seemed to think that this was correct because she just nodded her head with a thoughtful look on her face.
I thought to myself that a great soft-drink such as Soli-Cola has absolutely nothing in common with the A-Jacks cleaning soap but I know that my parents are usually right so I didn't say anything. I was just very surprised that Ima did not point out this obvious fact.
Later that same evening I was cleaning my books on the balcony. I turned each page carefully checking for any crumbs. I didn't find many but it looked liked all of the sandy dust of Yerushalayim had made it into my bookshelf during the year.
All the dust made me very thirsty so I took a break to go and get a drink in the kitchen. I knew we had Soli-Cola, because I had seen Ima put it in our cart earlier at the supermarket, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Maybe my siblings had already finished what was left over after Abba's cleaning and the new bottles from the supermarket. I called out to Ima:
Ima, where is the Soli-Cola?
She answered me from the hallway
Not in your teeth dear!
I could not believe my eyes when I looked into the hallway. Ima was pouring Soli-Cola in her cleaning bucket!
We didn't have any Soli-Cola for our Seder that year but I did get new klaffim of Tzaddikim. Ima got them for me when we were out walking just the two of us during Chol Hamoed. I still found it very strange that she had agreed to clean the house with cola so I decided to ask her why when we were all alone.
Ima why did you use Soli-Cola for the cleaning before Pesach? Please, tell me the truth.
Ima looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and she answered with a smile.
-You see, in a family and everywhere else too, we must do our best to respect and not to embarrass each other. Keeping the Shalom is so important even if it means cleaning the house with Soli-Cola.
posted by Gallery Maor at 8:09 AM
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