“Is everyone packed?” called Mommy.
“One second!” called Basya. “I am looking for a dress to wear for shalosh seudos!”
“Basya, you don’t need a different outfit for each meal,” Mommy said exasperatedly. “Come on, we need to leave before traffic gets bad.”
“Shimmy,” said Totty, schlepping. “Don’t forget to bring the Toras Avigdor booklets!”
“Don’t worry, Totty,” Shimmy replied, as he took out the garbage. “I hung my red baseball cap on the door to my room so I won’t forget to take them when I grab my overnight bag.”
“Are we there yet?” little Yaeli asked as Totty pulled out of the driveway.
“No, Yaeli,” Mommy said. “Here, why don’t you color in this coloring book. It will make the drive go by faster.”
“Thank you, Mommy!” Little Yaeli took the coloring book and crayons from Mommy and started scribbling frantically. “I’m going to color so fast to make us get there right away!”
“Yaeli,” said Basya. “Coloring faster won’t make us get there any earlier.”
“But Mommy said it would.”
“She meant it would make the drive seem like it’s going by faster for you,” Basya said gently.
Yaeli slowed down her coloring. “I don’t want to get there before everyone else,” she clarified.
Soon, the Greenbaums neared Passaic.
“Oooh look at the pretty river!” said Basya.
“Oh I don’t know,” Yitzy replied. “The Passaic River is one of the most polluted rivers in the country. I don’t think you’d want to go anywhere near it.”
“It can still look pretty,” protested Basya, rolling up her window out of caution - just in case.
“Rav Avigdor Miller would still say that we should admire how amazing such bodies of water are,” said Shimmy. “Oh no!”
“What’s wrong?” asked Mommy, concerned.
“I forgot to bring the Toras Avigdor booklets!” Shimmy said tearfully.
“Don’t worry, Shimmy,” said Totty. “I’m sure we can find a distribution point in Passaic. But Shimmy, I thought you said you hung your baseball cap on the door to remind you. Didn’t you see it?”
“I did,” Shimmy replied sheepishly. “But when I saw it, I just thought how nice it looked hanging from the doorknob. I forgot that it was supposed to be a reminder.”
A minute later, Totty rolled down his window and asked a Yid on the street where Toras Avigdor booklets could be found.
“Right there!” the man said, pointing to a store whose sign read “Kosher Bagel Munch”. “They always have Toras Avigdor booklets.”
“Thank you so much!” Totty said. “Have a Wonderful Shabbos!”
Totty pulled up in front of the bagel store.
“Oh look, Shimmy,” he said. “They’re having a special buy-one-get-one free sale l’kovod Parshas Beshalach! Why don’t you pick up a dozen bagels for shalosh seudos, along with the Toras Avigdor booklets?”
A few minutes later, Shimmy returned to the car, carrying a bag of bagels and the Toras Avigdor booklets.
As Totty drove to Uncle Shlomie and Tante Rochel’s house, Shimmy opened the Toras Avigdor Junior and started reading.
“What’s wrong, Shimmy?” asked Basya, noticing a troubled look on his face.
“This story is about lechem mishneh and how it’s supposed to remind us of the mann in the midbar.”
“That’s the same lesson as last year,” said Yitzy.
“I know,” said Shimmy. “But I’m realizing that a whole year has passed and still, when I look at the lechem mishneh I just look at how beautiful and delicous Mommy’s challahs are. I completely forget to think about the mann and the tremendous neis by which Hashem fed us in the midbar for forty long years.”
“It sounds like it’s a good thing that Toras Avigdor Junior is repeating the same lesson,” Totty said. “The whole lesson was to remember, and we’ve already forgotten it.”
“The bagel store had a buy-one-get-one free sale l’lovod Parshas Beshalach,” said Yitzy. “I bet they did that zecher l’mann!”
“I want my bagel to taste like cotton candy!” said little Yaeli.
“Yaeli, the bagels aren’t mann,” Basya explained. “It’s just that the mitzvah of lechem mishneh is supposed to remind us of the mann. That’s why Mommy always puts two challos on the Shabbos table - to remind us of the mann and so we should think of the amazing food Hashem made rain down from the sky so we wouldn’t be hungry when we were in the midbar where there were no bakeries or bagel stores.
“Mommy’s challah IS like the mann,” insisted little Yaeli. “Every week I ask Hashem to make it taste like challah - and it DOES!”
Have a Wonderful Shabbos!
Let’s review:
- What is the lechem mishneh supposed to remind us of?
- How will you remember to remember that when you look at the lechem mishneh this week?
