Beware Pesach Madness Syndrome

I blame my mother-in-law. She is the one that started all this, and it’s thanks to her I was placed in mortal danger when making a cup of coffee on Tuesday morning.

My crime? I nearly (according to my wife), put my “chametz cup” down on a recently koshered-for-Pesach kitchen surface.

To be clear, I had no intention of committing this horror. I was aware of the regulations (they had been pasted on the fridge) as I balanced my cell phone on my shoulder, my cup in one hand, the Starbucks sachet in the other, and tried to not burn myself in the process.

I didn’t know that my wife could move so fast. But she flew into the kitchen at seriously impressive speed in testimony to what yoga can achieve. In a flash, she was next to me in the kitchen, fully expecting to find that I had singlehandedly returned the kitchen to its pre-Pesach state of 21 March 2021.

“But you could have!” was her (weak) defence. And then, even weaker, “I wasn’t checking up on you. I just thought I would come and help you.” Yeah, right. Like I don’t know where she comes from.

And I blame my mother-in-law.

Which makes me think that “Pesach Madness Syndrome” might well be genetic. And that it’s passed down from mother to daughter without skipping a generation.

If I have to consider this in newly-acquired virology terms, it could be accurate to say that sufferers of Pesach Madness Syndrome are likely to be asymptomatic for most of the year. It might be that it lies dormant, but following the festival of Purim, something triggers it and causes a sudden onset.

It’s then that seemingly perfectly sane and rational people uncontrollably make pages and pages of lists, get involved in excessive buying, cleaning, and even paranoia. In the worst cases, victims confuse their husbands and children and, in their place, simply see walking “chametz” carriers.

There is no cure. It rarely results in death, aside from a few husbands and children who might have crossed the sufferer at the height of an attack, and symptoms ease or “pass-over” after a period (sorry).

Travel restrictions aren’t helping either. Which would have been an option for me following my brush with mortality this morning. It also might explain why I haven’t seen my children for the good part of a week. They could well have moved out. And the only thing I blame them for is not taking me with them.

With all of this, after having spent many a Pesach festival away, there is something special about the preparation in the run-up to the holiday. The process of “change”, the sense of rebirth, and even the pages and pages of lists undoubtedly all contribute to the texture, warmth, and appreciation of the time.

Assuming, of course, that one survives the week before.

Pesach Kasher Ve sameach!