Whatever I wrote about for this Thursday, I promised myself I would keep it short so we can all enjoy a nice holiday weekend.

This ambition naturally led me to procrastination…which of course brought me to social media.

I was scrolling through my Instagram feed recently, mindlessly of course, trying to figure out what exactly to do. In the middle of a grid filled with assorted craftiness and breakfasts gone by, I noticed a picture of a playbill from November 20, 2012. The play? Fiddler on the Roof.

It is a mission of mine to see Fiddler any chance I get. It is my favorite musical of musicals (even Hamilton will have to be pretty great for me to rank it above Sholem Alecheim’s Tevye and fam). I’ve seen the equivalent of an off-off-off-off Broadway production performed by understudies at the Reif in Grand Rapids; I have seen professional troupes sing and dance the familiar songs and dances in the not-as-familiar Hebrew at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv. I’ve been in the audiences at high school productions and I have pushed “Play” for tapes and DVDs (and the occasional pirated YouTube video when the mood suddenly strikes).

You may ask, why do I tell you all of this? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition.

Right now is a time steeped in tradition. Somewhere between the matzah and masses and individual annual miracles (such as the tulips peeking out from their winter blanket or the raising of a barn made of window plastic that will serve as a greenhouse for the fresh goodies harvest in the fall), we all have our traditions that we get to celebrate during this season (I know, I know…I talk about spring a lot. But I spent outside today in a t-shirt despite the 6-10 inches of snow we received just this past Monday; what’s not to love about that?). I wanted to stop this time together today to simply wish you nothing but time and excitement to enjoy your favorite miracles.

Wherever and however you find yourself, I wish you nothing but the peace and love and happiness this beautiful time has to offer each one of us on our journeys…because even if we are on different paths, we can still walk together (and if we can take that walk outside with no jacket, that’s a bonus).