Some Pesach Inspiration

The question many ask around this time, as we scour our entire house for the last traces of chametz, trying to rid our lives and our souls of the "inflated," risen flour, is "If chametz is so bad for our souls, why can we eat it the other three hundred fifty-some days of the year (exact number depends on the year and your location for the holiday)." If we work so hard to get rid of all of it, why is it ok 7 or 8 days later to go to the store and buy bread?

A parable from the ben Ish Chai:
In an old-timey town, the sheriff's out patroling one night and catches a thief red-handed. He puts the thief in handcuffs and begins walking him across town to the jailhouse. The thief is humiliated. Not only was he caught, but now the entire town sees him in cuffs, being led by the sheriff. This man senses a trace of empathy in the sherif's demeanor, and decides to capitolize on the moment. The thief pleas, "Sir, you have no idea how embarassed I feel. Not only did I commit this horrible crime and get caught, but now I am on display as a convict. Please, spare me some embarassment. For the rest of the walk to the jailhouse, could we switch places? I'll be the sherif and you will be the thief?"
The sherif agrees, takes the handcuff off of the thief, puts it around his own wrist, and hands the other end of the chain to the thief. They continue the walk in this manner, until they arrive at the back entrance to the jailhouse. The guard opens the door and the sherif makes a move to switch roles once again. The thief, however, stops the sherif and tries to act as though the sherif really is the thief and should be locked up. The guard seems quite perplexed and does not know what to do or who to believe. Finally, he realizes how to determine the true identities. The actual sherif will have something which the thief will not.
What is this that the sherif will have?

The sherif has the key.

So how does this relate to matzah on Pesach? All year long we can temporarily enslave ourselves to inflated ego and embellished perspective. But once a year, we abstain completely, to show that we still have control. We have the key and we are in control of our ego, our ego is not in control of us. If society is trying to lead our souls toward materialism and falsehoods, then matzah is the fence, once a year, keeping us within the boundaries of where we are supposed to be.

Chag kasher v'sameach!

Back in Oklahoma with our pup!!

I apologize to anybody who has been checking for updates... it has been quite a long time!
While I don't usually like making excuses, this past month we have had good reason. Thank G-d, our lives have been filled with lots of exciting, happy occasions!

Let's start back at our return from Alabama...
We picked up our puppy on the way home!
Liberty Belle Goldstein ("Libby") has now been part of our family for just about a month and she is adjusting wonderfully. She's a labradoodle just over four months old. She looks mostly like a lab right now, but we're told by six months her hair will start getting longer and wavy. We've already noticed growth since we got her.
She spends most of the day sleeping (in very attractive positions, might I add), with short bursts of puppy energy! We have 2-3 training sessions a day, and she's already mastered sit, down, and stay. We're making major progress with crate... she definitely knows what we want, it's just sometimes she wants to listen and other times she doesn't. Although I do have to hand it to her that since the very first night home she has been an angel at night. Whether or not she voluntarily enters her crate, once she's in there we don't hear a peep until morning.

Yoni playing with her in the yard on her first day home:









Sleeping all cute and curled up in her favorite spot:










Sleeping on her panda (gift from Loryn) - her favorite toy!









Libby after her first bath! (I know...it looks pitiful). Unfortunately she's not a big fan of the tub yet...









Yoni serenading Libby out in the yard:










Adorable.









So getting a new puppy alone would make a first week back quite eventful. Well, we decided that it wasn't quite enough excitement for us. Sooooo... we threw a Purim party the second night back (with the greatly appreciated help of the Goldsteins and Deganis) on the Air Force Base. We had about 20 people come out to the party - we read the megillah, ate a lot of food, and did trivia/costume contest. It was quite fun. Yoni's costume was awesome. Here's a backshot (during the megillah reading)... If you can't tell, he's Leonardo the Ninja Turtle.









During the day of Purim, we had the seudah at our house, and different people stopped by throughout the day.

So if my memory's correct, Purim ended on Tuesday night... then that Friday our friend Michael Lebovitz graduated from Pilot Training (Yay, congratulations Mike!). His whole family came in town to celebrate. We went to the ceremony in the morning, then spent the whole weekend with his family. Mike's twin sister observes Shabbat, so she stayed with us and we got to enjoy the company of his whole family for the meal on Saturday and a lovely afternoon of games and walking.

Now a week after we got back, we had a few days to unpack, get our dog comfy, and regroup. It's a good thing we've gotten fairly quick at unpacking and getting settled, because exactly one week later, we were off again!

This time to Baltimore for Frumie and Noach's wedding! We got into Baltimore on Sunday at noon, the wedding started at 2:00 PM, and we left the next morning at 8:00AM. Yet somehow in that time, we had a great time at the wedding, spent a few hours at the jam session in town, visited Mom Mom and Poppy, and gave Shadow hugs. We're so glad we went though, because it was great to see all the family at the wedding and celebrate with the lovely couple. :)

They had a gorgeous chuppah in the sanctuary of Beth Tefiloh:









Daniel and Nili were precious walking down the aisle hand in hand:










I got a few moments with Frumie before the badekkin. I have to say one thing that REALLY impressed me, and will probably always stick out in my mind when I think of this wedding. During the time before the badekkin, guests always go up to the kallah (bride) to get blessings. Well Frumie is the only kallah I know who spent hours before the day writing an index card for each and every guest with a personal bracha. Peshie sat at her side with the alphabetized cards and handed the right one over as each guest approached. Beautiful.












So we came back from Baltimore on Monday, I went straight to work, then got caught up on things a bit before the next big adventure... come Friday we went down to Oklahoma City for Shabbat. Now this trip is kind of old hat for us by now.... however, this excursion was a little different than the norm, because we traveled with puppy in tow. I do have to say, she was a trooper! The nice thing about traveling is the appreciation she gets for the familiarity of her crate. When she's in a brand new house, her crate has a feeling of comfort for her, so she likes to be in there. Victoria was very sweet and let all three of us spend Shabbat at her house.

Then we came back to Enid Saturday night and brought Libby to our friends (thanks Daniel and Melissa!!) Sunday morning - for we were off again! We caught a flight Sunday afternoon to Toronto, Canada! We met Yoni's whole family up there and had a lovely day of tourism, seeing the whole city from the top of the CN Tower! Then Monday night (the purpose of our trip) we got to join in the simcha of Jacky and Dina's wedding! The (Jack) Bengios are good friends in Dallas. Jacky (best friends with Shuki) has been living in Baltimore for many years.

They are Sephardi, so the wedding had some very beautiful, unique customs, such as the white tallit being presented under the chuppah and turning around to the open Ark at the end of the ceremony.






























There was also an AMAZING choir singing during all of the special moments. It was nice spending all of this time with the family too. Here's a picture of me, Yoni, Shuki, and Cyrel during the reception.










So there we go - that takes us up to exactly one week ago. Since that time we have been crazily cleaning for Pesach, getting ahead on all schoolwork for the next two weeks, taking a midterm, getting ready to go down to Dallas for the seders, and right in the middle of it all having a well-needed, amazing, relaxing Shabbat just the two of us at home, for the first time in three months.

Tomorrow we finish the cleaning, I have to work for two hours at the tutoring center, and then we're heading down to Dallas.

It's getting really late now and we have a long day tomorrow so I think we're going to call it a night. But we wish everyone a Happy Passover - Chag Pesach kasher v'sameach, and may it be filled with meaning and Joy!

Last night I called in to a really good shiur about the holiday, so if I have a few spare minutes tomorrow I will try to share them.

Alabama Adventures

Here are some pictures of the Air Force Base here. There are a lot of static air displays, and the road leading into the main circle has a flag for every US State in addition to a flag for each country that works with the US military and sends representatives to our bases.






























The houses on base are gorgeous! There is an entire neighborhood of houses like this for families of Majors and up. If we ever move to this base on a semi-permanent basis, I would be perfectly happy with one of these houses.















Over President's Day weekend, we went to Birmingham for Shabbat again, then headed to Atlanta Saturday night and stayed for two days with the Kovals. On Sunday we had a very nice brunch, went to the JCC for Laura's basketball, then went to visit Alison and the boys!
Daniel took to Yoni. He reached for his hand the entire afternoon. It was quite cute!














And I was quite content with Ezra in my arms the whole afternoon :)
















On Monday, Aunt Debbie and Uncle Mike had to work, but Will and Laura were off of school, so we took them downtown to the Aquarium. The Atlanta Aquarium is quite amazing! We went through all of the exhibits then did the special Titanic experience.
Here's a picture taken in the tunnel of a shark above us:














There wasn't enough room in front of any of the tanks to take a picture of us, so we attempted in front of a video screen of fish, but it didn't turn out so well. Here's the four of us:















Another fun experience we had was the babysitting evening! Yoni's flight has 9 married couples with children, us, and four single guys. The single guys decided they wanted to watch the kids one night to allow the other married couples an evening out. Yoni and I volunteered to help in the babysitting room. I went into it thinking that it would be quite necessary to have a female present with all of the children. I was actually quite impressed with all the single guys though! Yes, they were thankful to have me when a diaper needed to be changed, but when it came to playing with the kids and keeping them all happy, they were aces.















The best was Mike Love's story time - which kept all of the kids mesmerized for about 35 minutes...















We now approach our last few days here in Montgomery.
Yoni has his exam on Tuesday, a 5K run on Wednesday, the ICARUS tournament on Thursday, and then graduation early Friday morning. After graduation we're planning to drive straight to Memphis where we'll spend Shabbat. We'll then drive just past Little Rock Saturday night and back to Oklahoma on Sunday. On the way back home we get to stop in Oklahoma City and pick up our puppy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We're still working on the name. Hopefully it'll be a no-brainer once we pick her up and get to know her.

It's so hard to believe - we're almost halfway through our time in Alabama!!
We've actually been very busy here and having a great time.

A recap of the last few weeks:
1) Our first Shabbat in Birmingham - Yoni jumped through all the diplomatic hoops and got special permission to leave an hour and a half early on Friday for three weekends while we're here. This way, on those weeks, we can make it up to Birmingham, the nearest Jewish community, in time for Shabbat. We spent our first Shabbat with some families up there. The community is small, but warm, and we had a really wonderful time. We are looking forward to getting to know them all better as we continue to visit throughout our time here. It's so cool meeting people in all the different communities. It's so neat to think that we never know when our paths may cross again. We definitely like this lifestyle of newness and changes - neither of us are quite the type of people that could be in one community with all the same people for life - so I guess it works well that our lives will be full of the newness!

2) Hank Williams - That first Sunday, we ventured to downtown Montgomery and went to the Hank Williams museum. This was his town - born and raised. What an amazing trip back in time to the era of '52 Cadillacs, Gibson steel guitars, and Nudie western suits! It is deceptively small from the front of the museum, but incredibly deep once you get inside and see the huge amount of show suits, instruments, cowboy hats and boots, gold records, and other Hank Williams memorabilia that tell the story of this pioneering country superstar. They even have the '52 Cadillac convertible that Hank rode that fateful New Year's Eve in 1952. We enjoyed this experience immensely and recommend it to anyone who considers him/herself a country music fan. On the way home, we listened to old classics like "Kaw-Liga" and "Move it on Over" and Yoni's been spending a good deal of time this week perfecting the guitar solo for the latter.






















3) Bowling - There was a VERY fun ASBC spouse night at the bowling alley! Michelle got really bright neon colored shoes, and Yoni wowed everyone with his bowling finesse!!

By the way, this picture of Michelle bowling is included, because it's one of the few in which the ball is in the middle of the lane and not in a gutter.









Yoni's chest pass!











4) Atlanta trip - Last week, I went to Atlanta for a couple days to see the family! I stayed with Tanah and Alie, and got to play with Daniel and Ezra a lot - that was definitely a treat! We also went out to dinner with the whole crew - Aunt Neda, Aunt Debbie, Uncle Mike, Will, and Laura. Atlanta is such a great city, and it's nice having so much family that close to visit! We're planning to go again Sunday and Monday this weekend, because Yoni has off for President's Day, so he can come with this time.

5) Shabbat on base - In Atlanta, I also stocked up on a lot of good meat, because we made Shabbat here last weekend. With our fun little kitchenette, we actually managed to make a pretty hearty, exciting meal. Since we usually eat at the counter bar in the room, and we don't really have a table, Yoni got permission to borrow a table from his flight room, and one of his buddies was very nice and helped him carry it over to our room. It was a kind of interesting shape, but worked just fine for our innovative meals. We had a few guests too! On Friday night, Emy came over. She's a Lieutenant in ASBC as well, and when she saw Yoni and was so excited to meet another Jew in the Air Force (she said he's the third she's met), we invited her for the meal! Then on Saturday, we had Yoni's ROTC buddy Mark Shiffrin, and our neighbors over for the meal. It was very nice having people to share the meals with :) We'll be doing that one more time before we leave, in two weeks.

6) Mall -This past Sunday, we decided to explore the town of Montgomery a little bit more. It's quite a bit bigger than Enid. They have a beautiful outdoor mall that we explored. We only bought one thing - a Labradoodle book at the book store (SOOOOO Excited!!!) - but we had a great time walking around in the gorgeous weather :) ... Yeah, it's been about 78 degrees and sunny for the past week :-D

7) ICARUS - For each academic training program at Maxwell, they have a game which the guys/girls have to learn and compete in. For ASBC, the game is Icarus, often referred to as, "Dodgeball on steroids." It's actually a really cool game. It is a VERY complicated real-life simulation of war strategy. Each game we go to, I learn a few more of the rules, and I'm starting to understand it. After their first game last week, when they lost by quite a bit, a bunch of the wives decided to give them some spirit!! So we made t-shirts and bought a lot of orange stuff (that's the color of their squadron - the Dragons) and went out to cheer!! It was a beautiful day, and they won!! Their flight has actually had quite an amazing week! In their war gaming simulation the other day, they got the best score in the whole squadron, they got the third best average on their first exam yesterday, and they won their Icarus game. We're all quite proud :) Yoni's loving every minute of it and having a great time.

The whole team ordered temporary tattoos of dragons (their team) to increase their spirit!
It was definitely quite funny seeing Yoni with a tattoo, but it only lasted about 24 hours, so no harm done..














The whole team after the win!!










A picture right before the game was about to begin...






















8) Sarah - My friend Sarah (from high school) was down in Alabama visiting her parents who moved here a couple of years ago. They're up in Huntsville, so Sarah and I met for the day in Birmingham, which is right in between. Unfortunately, it wasn't a day quite as beautiful as the rest we've been having, but we still had a great time catching up. We met at a mall there and chatted for a while, then went on a drive around downtown to a non-existent casino and a beautiful tower statue. It was starting to clear up, so we walked out to the tower, and as we got there about to take pictures, the skies opened up and we got caught in a downpour!! We quickly took this one picture to prove that we got together and were there, then made a mad dash for the car!!














This weekend we're going to Birmingham again for Shabbat and then going straight from there to Atlanta to spend some more time with the family over the long weekend. So much fun :)

Goldsteins in Alabama!!

We have arrived to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. This will be our home for the next six weeks. We still have our house at Vance, awaiting our return, but we are here while Yoni goes through ASBC (Aerospace Basic Course).

The drive here went rather smoothly. We went to Dallas on Friday and stayed with the Deganis up north for a lovely Shabbat. One of the boys in the Rich family had his Bar Mitzvah, so we walked to their shul and joined in the simcha!

Saturday night we hit the road! We crossed the rest of Texas on I-20 and called it a night in Bossier City, a few dozen miles into Louisiana. We're definitely seeing a lot of this country...

On Sunday it was only about 7 1/2 hours more across Mississippi and into Montgomery, Alabama.

The base is big and really nice! They have just about everything here... there's a riding club, golf course, paintball, etc. And we've only just begun to explore...

I've also discovered their beautiful library, as it's a good place to sit and work on Math homework.. This Air Force Base is actually the location of Air University (the university for the Air Force), so there is an aire of education.

Yoni is doing all sorts of fun stuff. He reports usually by 0730 and is home by 1630, and during that time he does a lot of classroom learning, leadership training, and physical training. Next week he'll do Combined Ops, which combines him with students from the Senior NCO Academy (Senior and Chief Master Sergeants) and a bunch of captains here on TDY. This week he's performed his first PT test of our stay here, and passed easily.

His academics are somewhat challenging, and there is a great amount of extra projects that Yoni's flight has taken on and his day is always filled with stuff to do.

We really like it here. We were placed in a unique flight of mostly married couples with children in tow, so "Thanks!" to the Air Force for being considerate and making it easy for us to mix it up with the young families. Our neighbors are very sweet people and we look forward to becoming close with them. There is a spouse club here, too, and we have events planned every day. As wives of the LTs, we can also join our husbands and participate in certain activities and lectures.

This weekend Yoni has received special permission to leave an hour and a half early, so that we have time to drive to Birmingham for Shabbat. We have families to stay with and eat with up there. Via phone, it seems like an open, welcoming community. By the end of our career, we hope to spend Shabbat with every Jewish community in the United States!!

Some fun pictures:

Our room is a little short on dresser space, so Yoni converted one of the kitchen cabinets into his dresser :)











Last night, Yoni's whole flight and the families had a bbq in the courtyard in front of our dorm building. Yoni played some guitar and we all hung out for a few hours.

Getting to know the real "Enidians"...or as some call them, "Enoids"

Today was quite a day!!!

During the morning, I (Michelle) had two appointments, both of which made me a little nervous, so Yoni was a wonderful husband and came with me for moral support.

For the first appointment, I had to get the new sheitl cut. My friend Michelle told me I should go to this hairdresser she found in town. She loved him, her hair looks great, and the price was about a tenth the price of a sheitl macher in Baltimore, so I figured I'd give it a shot. To ease any worries, I'll tell you right now - he did a great job! I think I may actually be more happy with this one than the other one.

The real story though lies in the experience.

Day in and day out, Yoni and I encounter genuine curiosity as people have never heard of or experienced Orthodox Judaism. When I called the hairdresser two days ago, I tried my best to explain the situation. I must not have explained very clearly though, because we showed up today, and he said to us:
"Ok, so I have been racking my brain for two days. I remember you telling me you always cover your hair for religious reasons, and I can't see your hair, but I couldn't figure out for the life of me how you expect me to cut it if I can't see it!!!"
Haha, this poor guy, I thought I explained it was a wig, but for two days he was worried how he was going to fulfill my wishes and do a good haircut at the same time.

The second appointment was a little less exciting. To avoid unpleasant details, I'll just say I had outpatient surgery at the podiatrist's. All in all, it was not so bad. Funny story from this though - the podiatrist had quite the sense of humor (kind of reminded me of being in Dr. Sandler's dental chair actually)...
They numbed the toe and started working... yet it wasn't completely numb. Ow. In goes another shot to numb. I hear lots of stuff going on, feel very uncomfortable and the Dr. says, "Ah! Done!!"
I got very excited and said, "Really???"
"Nope," he said, started laughing at me and kept going...

This had Yoni and the nurse in stitches, but I really didn't find it so funny (at the time).
Oh Oklahomans...

This afternoon was also quite great!! Dani came over and we made challah together, and it was the first time she ever made it. I taught her how to make the dough and she had a great knack for the braiding. It's so much fun to not only be able to teach someone something so special as making challah, but to be able to share an aspect of Judaism with people out here :)

This weekend we're off to Oklahoma City for Shabbat, staying with Mike and Wendy (another young couple who often goes to Chabad), then flying Sunday morning to Atlanta for Ben Kogutt's wedding (one of Yoni's good high school friends).


T minus 60 days until we get our puppy :-D

The planes are flying again and we picked a puppy!

After a nice long vacation, with plenty of visitors and skies vacant of planes, the normal routine has begun again! We awoke to revelie, three to four planes are seen in the sky at any given moment and the new year has begun!

In slightly more exciting news, Michelle got her bike yesterday! (Just like Yoni's, except the girl's version..)

Annnnd we drove down to Oklahoma City and picked out our puppy today!!

She's 5 weeks now, so she'll be just about three months when we pick her up when we get back from Alabama.

She doesn't have a name yet (we're working on that one), so as of right now she's Female 4...

Her Mom is a beautiful lab, her Dad is a standard poodle, so she's a...
LABRADOODLE!

She'll grow to about the size of a normal lab, but have some waves in her hair and she won't shed.

Here are some cute pictures of us with her:



























The "doggy pile" of the whole litter sleeping together -- sooooo cute!











In other news, the rest of last week was wonderful. On New Year's Eve, Dad and Mom came. We had a few nice relaxing days exploring the Air Force Base and the town of Enid, and then we had our first Enid Shabbat!!

It was very nice. Not only did we have them as guests for both meals, but on Saturday we also had Michael, Dani, Daniel and Melissa over for lunch (most of the crowd from the Chanukah party). They're all so sweet and it was wonderful getting to know them better and enjoying the afternoon together. After lunch we played games till just about seudah shlishit!