We just finished celebrating Pesach and Chag Hamatzot (Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread). During this past week, we attempted to abstain from eating anything with yeast as well as removing it from our homes completely. Trying to pursue Torah is not always as simple or straightforward as it might seem. After the first couple of days of not eating leaven and having matzah (unleavened bread) as part of our daily diet, I was feeling pretty good. It was a short-lived arrogance on my part. My husband ate out one day while at work and realized only later that he had something that had leaven, I did the same thing without even noticing one night. But the error that really got me was as I prepared dinner one night.

This is probably our 7th year of celebrating this season, but each year we learn more and I become convicted of more. Yes, I do tend to find more "things" to do during this season - I tend to feel like I could always do "better." But I do my best to not get caught up in what I "could have" done and understand more of what I "should" be learning. I have gotten much better at cleaning the house, but I am more concerned of keeping a clean heart. I try to prepare my weekly menu in my mind, so that I'm not worried about accidentally including leaven in anything. One night, in my arrogance of having an "easy" passover, I was cooking some meat. I was throwing in some seasoning when I arbitrarily looked at the back of the package. All of a sudden I find myself reading the ingredients nervously saying to myself: "don't have leaven, don't have leaven, don't have leaven..." Sure enough, there it was: yeast. I had just made this delicious meat and just threw in a bunch of yeast!

I am not one to want to waste food, but I literally dropped my head in disgust with a loud "UGH!" My 3-year-old daughter came in from the other room and asked what happened (since she overheard my outburst). I told her mommy made a mistake. She just said "Oh," and turned around to go back to what she was doing. I stopped myself in my tracks and made a decision. I finished cooking and after the food cooled, I put it in a container in our deep freeze outside to be reheated and eaten after passover. I thought a lot about how that little package of seasoning was back in the corner of my cupboard, but not meant to be hidden. I honestly did not know it had yeast in it, otherwise it would have been taken outside for the week like all the rest of the yeast in our house.

You can imagine that my easy-going mindset for this passover was out the window and now I knew it was time to get to work. I became overwhelmed by an understanding of 2 concepts that came to my heart and mind. First of all, if sin means "missing the mark" - as in archery terms - the mark is very difficult to make, but missing it doesn't make you a bad archer, it only means you're not perfect yet. If I try to shoot a basketball and don't make the basket, I don't beat myself up, yet when I sin, I feel like it's the end of my integrity as I know it. If I am to truly understand grace, I must accept it in the midst of trying to make the bull's eye. I know that I am not alone in the world of believers who are just too hard on themselves and get in their own way of joy.

But the second concept was maybe even more powerful to me. I started to think about Messiah and how He lived an entire life sin-free. If, even in my preparation to have a leaven free home and life for a WEEK, I have difficulty, the idea of living a sinless life is even more incredible. Yet, He did it. It makes His sacrifice that much more priceless. What an accomplishment! I know, I know, He is G-D. And I am not so bold to compare myself to His perfection, but it does pose a greater respect for His love for Torah and His grace to those of us who fall short.

Romans 5:20-21

Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,

so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord.

A BABY CHANGES EVERYTHING

Whew, blogging....it is a rarity anymore; a precious gem in the middle of my beautiful, chaotic mess of a life. I love the moment to sit and think and soak and spew. A very dear friend of mine has a most exceptional blog - in my humble opinion, one of the best writing styles I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Yes, Joanna, that would be you! :o) Joanna has come to visit for a bit, and reading her blog has inspired me once again to take a moment (one of the few personal moments granted me) to open up and look inside exposing some self-awareness.

Since my last post, we have had another baby, Levi. He is now 7 months old. Huh - interesting, another 7 months between posts which was again unintentional, but probably not a coincidence again either.

I have to preface what I am going to write with something very important - Hava, my 3 year old daughter is a beautiful creation inside and out. She is a controlled container of unending energy, love and creativity. She is conquering various languages (Portuguese, English, Hebrew and Spanish - probably in that order), expressing her thoughts and feelings through music, movement and art, and intensifying her understanding of and care for the well-being of others. She is my "florzinha" (little flower) and I am a better person and woman having known her and being given the BLESSING of raising her. However, this post is not about her. I only feel the need to give her the rightful first-born place in my thought processes regarding my children.

Although I do NOT believe any selfish hopes, dreams or desires should be projected onto unsuspecting newborns as they are human beings and not meant to be the answers to any questions or resolutions to any problems, still I have to say that in Levi's entrance to this world, besides his very existence he brought a much needed gift with him to our family: peace.

Levi was born with some physical "imperfections," he has since been healed of them, and though that is a testifying story of blessing in and of itself, it is not what defines him. G-D brought Levi to us, to ME, in a very trying time of life (as you can probably tell from my previous posts). Because of this, and probably needless to say, I was a bit nervous about being given the responsibility of parenting a second child. I was uneasy about the added expenses, the difference of personality from my daughter's, the difference of his newborn sleeping and eating schedule and the readjusting of family, work and school schedules. But everything came to the most wonderfully unexpected halt when a porcelain-skinned, blue-eyed, SMILING boy came to rest in my arms. Except for the fact that we knew we were having a boy with some kidney issues by c-section, everything else about his entrance was beautifully surprising, including the peace.

A friend of mine who knows us well and our daughter, when meeting Levi for the first time, looked up at me and said with the most serious, emphatic words: "I have held many babies who are easy and calm - but Levi is different. He IS peace." And pretty much everyone who has met him has said the same thing - they are taken by the twinkle in his gorgeous blue eyes, the fact that he is such a light color and especially his smile. He can play alone marvelously for extended amount of time, ONLY complains if he is hungry, tired, hurting or dirty, and he is able to bring any stressful day where time is flying by to a peaceful pause. He has an uncanny way of looking at me and in a split second making my mind rest, my lungs breathe and my heart smile.

Intellectually speaking, I knew that each child would be different. What I did not expect was to receive through them the very thing I needed most at that moment in time. Hava brought a joy we had never known. She drew (and still draws) people's attention to her physical beauty and charming personality (outside of the sporadic toddler meltdowns). But Levi, although beautiful (have I mentioned the eyes ;)), although intelligent (fully crawling at barely 6 months in comparison with Hava's almost 9 months), and although a calm, fun personality (seriously, the boy smiles 95% of the time), brought peace.

I can't even find the words to describe this peace. It is incredible. It is lovely. It might just be one of the most precious gifts I have ever received. So, here is an excerpt from a prayer I love:

"May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life for us and for all Israel; and say Amen. May He who maketh peace in the heavens, make peace for us and for all Israel; and say Amen."