{"id":11595,"date":"2008-03-13T12:24:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-13T12:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/digging_for_nuts\/"},"modified":"2015-10-28T10:53:52","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T15:53:52","slug":"digging_for_nuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/digging_for_nuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Digging For Nuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image\"<\/div>\n

It\u2019s March now and the slushy snow is melting. The daylight lasts longer, and the air is beginning to mellow. I should be feeling hopeful and serene. Instead, I suddenly feel as though two crazy squirrels are racing around, digging for nuts in my head. I\u2019ve nicknamed them Purim and Pesach. Affectionately.<\/p>\n

Purim is the hyper one. \u201cBuy all the nosh you can find!\u201d he shouts, whipping his bushy tail like a metronome. I nod obediently, in time to his tail. He\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Pesach is more menacing. \u201cStop buying anything, start eating down the house!\u201d he demands, and glares at me with his beady little eyes. I nod again. He\u2019s right too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we can\u2019t both be right,\u201d they shout in squirrely unison. My aching head rattles as I nod repeatedly. This too is true. I wonder if they are rabid. I wonder if I am rabid.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeave me alone,\u201d I plead miserably, \u201cFind someplace else to go.\u201d But no. They know a nut when they see it and they\u2019ve found a big one. Now they\u2019re trying to crack it. Sadly, the nut is my brain.<\/p>\n

Like Jewish wives and mothers through the ages I\u2019m caught between the warring desire to fill up and to empty out, to play and to work, to give and to get rid. It\u2019s enough to make a person seek professional help. But since I didn\u2019t know if I should call a psychiatrist or an exterminator, I just reached out to a friend. Hesitantly, I told her about the squirrels in my brain. I was scared she\u2019d think I was crazy, but she smiled sympathetically.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose aren\u2019t squirrels. They\u2019re the Yetzer Hara,\u201d she said sagely. I thought she was crazy but I smiled anyway. It seemed only right.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, really,\u201d she insisted, \u201cthat\u2019s the Yetzer Hara trying to make sure you don\u2019t get to enjoy anything at all. Once he takes away your Simcha, he\u2019s ruined your mitzvah.\u201d I thought that was pretty wise, but she was just getting started.<\/p>\n

She rattled off loads of advice, some really helpful stuff. Stuff like making itemized lists, cutting back on the Purim popularity contest, re-thinking the whole spring cleaning thing, and occasionally sitting down in the middle of chaos for a hot cup of coffee. She said I should buy a set of toys and set them aside for Pesach every year so I don\u2019t have to clean the other ones out. She said that my Purim list could be slashed in half and no one would be offended. She said that I should remember to breathe. Best of all, she told me that in her house they don\u2019t start Pesach cleaning until Rosh Chodesh Nissan. That way, Purim has its time and Pesach has a separate time. That may not work for everyone, but I think it might work for me. Besides, anything you do that far in advance probably gets undone anyway.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure I\u2019ve heard all this advice in some form or another before. But this time I really listened and it felt different. I sensed a quietness in my head, as though those two overgrown rodents were finally gone to wherever it is that squirrels go. Maybe searching for nuts in someone else\u2019s head. In the sudden calm I breathed deeply. Then I took out a pen and wrote down my friend\u2019s advice so I wouldn\u2019t forget it. I underlined \u201cDrink Coffee\u201d and \u201cRemember to Breathe\u201d. I think there\u2019s a lot of merit to what she said and I\u2019m going to get on it right away. There\u2019s just one thing I need to take care of first.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going hunting for squirrel.<\/p>\n

\n

Yael Zoldan is a Brooklyn girl, who lives in Passaic, New Jersey, with her husband and children. Somewhere between carpool and laundry she finds the time to write.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s March now and the slushy snow is melting. The daylight lasts longer, and the air is beginning to mellow. I should be feeling hopeful and serene. Instead, I suddenly feel as though two crazy squirrels are racing around, digging for nuts in my head. I\u2019ve nicknamed them Purim and Pesach. Affectionately. Purim is the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":227,"featured_media":33630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nDigging For Nuts - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I suddenly feel as though two crazy squirrels are racing around, digging for nuts in my head. I\u2019ve nicknamed them Purim and Pesach. 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