Nine Pieces
of Bread

I was singing at the top of my lungs as I wrapped the pieces of bread for bedikas chametz. “Stop!” Leah shouted from the kitchen. “Please don’t even sing about chametz. I’m going to have a nightmare! I am not cleaning anything ever again!”

I laughed. Leah had spent the last three weeks helping clean our house and was now baking the best Pesach cakes. I was not going to upset her. I needed a friend in the kitchen. Staying on her good side meant getting tastes of all the best food and helping lick the batter. Those are things I’m very good at.

I continued with my bread preparation, minus the singing. Ten pieces. Each was neatly wrapped and placed in a tightly sealed ziplock. Bedikas chametz prep done. In just an hour, I’d get to hide them, and then Abba would go searching for 
them all.

I headed to the kitchen to see if Leah needed any help. Perfect timing. Cookies were coming out of the oven and clearly needed a taster like me. I made a “shehakol” and took a bite. “Leah, are you sure this isn’t chametz? It’s too good to be a Pesach cookie!” I exclaimed.

She laughed and looked flattered. “Seriously! This cookie is sooooo good. I think I should check one more just to be sure they really are Pesach cookies.”

“Out of the kitchen now,” Leah announced. “I have to finish this cake before bedikas chametz.”

I headed upstairs to my room and found my Haggadah. This year, I was going to stay up for the entire Seder, unlike last year when I somehow found myself fully dressed on the couch the morning after the Seder. I had such plans of making it to the end, but somehow there I was each morning — overtired, fully dressed, with all my siblings joking about how cute I looked.

This year would be different. My Rebbi had given me divrei Torah on parts of Nirtzah. That was definitely a sign that I should be up. I flipped through the pages I had written. There were so many new lessons I had learned this year in fifth grade.

Being the youngest in the family has its perks, but I do get treated like a baby. This year, I was going to show them all that I was older now.

“Bedikas chametz in ten minutes!” Abba announced from downstairs.

That was my cue. I ran to get the ten pieces and started hiding them around the house. “Want some help?” my older brother Chaim offered. “No thanks. I got this,” I reassured him. 

“Don’t lose any, or we aren’t going to sleep tonight,” he teased. Brothers. They can be so annoying sometimes. No matter how old I get, Chaim always thinks I’m just a careless kid. “Chaim, I did it perfectly last year,” I reminded him. “And Abba had to really search. I don’t need your help.”

I got busy hiding them all. One on top of the dresser. That was an easy one. One inside the light cover. Hiding that one took a chair on a desk, but it was worth it! Abba would probably notice the darker spot in the light cover. One piece under the washing machine. That would be a first.

I wondered if Abba had to check the porch… should I put a piece there? That got a no from me. If you didn’t have to check the porch, Chaim would tease 
me forever.

“Ready?” Abba asked. “So ready!” I called back from the basement. He made the bracha, and the search began.

The one under the kitchen sink he found easily. And the one on the dresser. He moved around the house searching for all the chametz — and, of course, my pieces. It took a while, but he finally finished searching the house from top to bottom.

And that’s when the problem began.

“There are only nine pieces here,” Chaim said, counting them again to be sure. “Dovi, where’s the last one?” “Count again. Abba got all my places…” I was starting to feel a little nervous. I couldn’t remember any other spots where I had put bread, but Chaim was counting again, and there were still only nine pieces.

Mommy looked a little panicked now. “Dovi, think hard,” she said. “Where else could a piece be?” I wasn’t feeling very old now. This was getting scary. 

“Ma, Abba found all my places. I don’t know what’s going on. I hid ten pieces, but now there are nine. It doesn’t make any sense.” “Didn’t I say I would help you?” Chaim announced in the most unhelpful way. “Now no one is going to sleep tonight. We all need to find this piece of bread.”

Everyone went off looking, and I sat on the couch feeling horrible. I thought about all the places I had put the bread pieces — and we had found every single one.

This made no sense. Bread can’t just disappear. Maybe I had only packed nine? That didn’t make sense either. I knew I counted ten. I didn’t want to be that little kid no one could trust. I had one job. How did I mess it up? Where was the bread?

Abba was going through every room again. I knew he was tired. Everyone was tired. No one wanted to be doing bedikas chametz for hours. And it was all my fault. I felt horrible. I tried to help look for the bread, but I knew we had already found all the places. I headed to my room. I couldn’t just sit there watching everyone search and feeling so guilty.

I sat down on my bed. How could I fix this? Where could bread go without anyone finding it during an entire search? I felt so helpless. I unzipped my hoodie to put it in the laundry and get ready for bed. As I threw it toward the hamper, a bag fell out of the pocket…

“The bread! I have the bread!!” I shouted as loud as I could.

Everyone came running. I was crying now. Tears of relief. This was over. “The bread was in my pocket,” I managed to say through the tears. “My hoodie is so fuzzy I didn’t feel it at all. But it was there. With me the entire time. I’m sorry, everyone.”

I collapsed onto my bed. Abba took the piece of bread. I was so relieved.

“Dovi,” Abba said softly, “there’s a lesson here, aside from the fact that from now on we are going to write down where every piece is hidden.” He held up the bag.

“You see, we just spent an hour searching for this bread that was actually with you the entire time. It was sitting in your pocket. It was as close to you as possible — you just didn’t know it.

Sometimes we spend our days searching for Hashem. We look for hidden signs and travel to faraway places. But we forget something very simple. Hashem is as close as possible. He’s here with us in every moment — in every joy and every hard time. Through the long days in galus. In the dark times in Mitzrayim. Even when we feel lost and searching, Hashem is right there, so close by. 

Just like this piece of bread.” Abba hugged me. I was feeling calmer now. I realized how lucky I was to be surrounded by a family that loved me — even when I lost their tenth piece of bread — and to have a father who could always find a lesson in every situation

Hashem really is always with me. 

What I Learned

Just like the missing piece of bread, sometimes what we’re looking for is closer than we think. Next time you feel like you’re looking for Hashem and wondering where to find Him, remember — He’s with you! Even if it sometimes feels like He’s far away, He is really very close, watching over us, and we can talk to Him like He’s right here.