Growing Closer to Her Roots
After Pesach one year, I was standing in the train station on my way to Paris. A woman suddenly appeared and asked, “Rabbi, why is it that after the Pesach holiday, many Jews grow beards?”
“Why does this interest you?” I asked, in return. I wasn’t even sure she was Jewish.
“Honored Rav,” she replied, “I am Jewish and made Pesach for the first time this year.”
I answered her question about the beard. I told her that the days after Pesach are called Sefirat Haomer. We mourn the deaths of Rabbi Akiva’s students. We therefore do not shave or take haircuts then. She accepted my words and we parted ways.
It struck me that this woman probably never asked such questions before. But as soon as she began observing Pesach, she felt a sense of liberation from her former lifestyle.
It was the strength of this liberation, coupled with observance of the Pesach holiday, which imbued her with holiness and inspired her to continue growing spiritually, even after the holiday ended. She began searching for meaning in Judaism and was thereby brought to ask me this question. She truly wished to learn and observe the mitzvot of her newly-discovered religion.
