The night Pesach ended, my wife decided to make sourdough bread for the kids to have for breakfast the next morning. We’d gotten rid of most of our chametz before Pesach, so we didn’t have much else in the house. And what’s better after 8 days of matzah than freshly baked bread?!
So my wife made the dough and set it aside to rise overnight. I had already gone to bed, so she texted me instructions for the morning, to ensure the bread would be ready by 7am.
Now, I normally stay far away from the kitchen—all I know how to cook is eggs! But she spelled it out so clearly, how could I go wrong?
When I woke up at 5am, I read her text message three times and followed it to a tee.
- Take sourdough (x2) out of the fridge
- Put onto counter with parchment paper (which is on the counter)
- Cut a line into the dough (with the knife next to the paper)
- Put into the blue pot on the counter with the paper under the bread and put the lid on top (all on the counter)
- Bake on 500 and press start
- For one hour (100)
And that’s exactly what I did.
I even felt proud of myself—I got this! I’ll be the kids’ savior with fresh sourdough when they wake up at 7am. They will be so excited after a week of Pesach food.
With the baking underway, I hopped onto the Peloton for some exercise.
While cycling, I began to smell smoke coming from the kitchen and I wondered if something might be wrong. But then I patted myself on the back and said, “Believe in your wife and believe in yourself. You followed her instructions to a tee—it’s impossible that she made a mistake.” So I ignored the smell and cycled on.
The burning smell grew stronger, but again I reassured myself: Have faith! You did everything correctly; probably this is supposed to happen.
A few minutes later, my daughter woke up and came running to me. “Tatty, tatty! The whole house is full of smoke! What’s going on?". Turns out, she woke up from the smell!
So I jumped off the Peloton and ran to the kitchen, and indeed, the whole house was full of smoke! I turned off the oven but the fire alarms started ringing anyway, waking up everyone else in the house (only one kid slept through, and had no idea what had happened!). Quickly, we all started opening the doors and windows and waving towels back and forth in front of the smoke detectors.
It took us an hour, but we finally got all the smoke out of the house.
So, what did I do wrong? Nothing!
Were the instructions wrong? Also not!
Turns out, there was some sort of spill in the oven from all our Pesach cooking that was now burning and creating all the ruckus.
So what’s the lesson here?
Yes, if you want shalom bayit, if you want a beautiful home and peaceful marriage, always listen to your wife. But when you smell smoke, use your common sense and don’t ignore it!