Our young daughter Bluma had a rough time adjusting to Matzah this year. She didn’t like the taste of it, wasn’t interested in it, and that was that. But Matzah, especially at the Seders is a very important Mitzvah! So on the first afternoon of Pesach, before the Second Seder, I sat down with her alone in the library upstairs, and told her the story of Shmuel of Karov and the Chozeh of Lublin which my grandfather R’ Moshe Rubin would share every year at the Second Seder.
See the full story here, as we’ve shared it before at Shabbos House: https://www.shabboshouse.org/second-seder-was-better-than-the-first/
The message? It’s not always about what we like or what we feel like doing. Even if we don’t feel like it, there’s a sense of obligation, a sense of duty.
The amazing thing is that Bluma got it! I didn’t realize it at first, but she was eager to share with the students almost a week later on the 7th Night of Pesach. Bluma got up on a chair and she shared the story with everyone, in her own words, very sweetly. I didn’t think she would want to share the whole background about her challenge with Matzah, but she insisted that I did. She was proud of her personal Matzah transition and how she learned it from the story. And it was a nice lesson for the students as well.