Ever seen pictures of people gathering their strength and resources to climb Mt. Everest?

Avalanches await yawning crevasses beckon it’s hard to breathe there’s a danger of frostbite and they may be tied to the mountain by a single rope.

But still they climb.

What’s this crazy drive for reaching the top?

For every physical drive I believe there’s a spiritual one.

Late one Erev Shabbos I was shopping in our small local grocery store surrounded by people frantically filling up their carts with who knows what. In the corner an Arab who’s been working here for years sat back and watched in awe and I overheard him say “Aizeh am raev” — what a hungry nation.

And the opposite is true as well; for every spiritual drive there’s a physical one.

So our soul — compared to fire which continuously reaches upward — often finds its physical manifestation in the kitchen.

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Her kitchen.

She prepares her equipment and materials for the long Erev Shabbos. For the long upward hike.

Matzoh meal flour eggs and oil. Chicken fish and flanken.

She starts while it’s still early in the cool morning air. Birds are still chirping. Clouds slowly moving aside for the sun.

She’s climbed this mountain many times before sometimes even carrying a baby.

But today — maybe because of age maybe because of questions or doubts or a temporary loss of drive or reason — it feels so hard.

She knows too well what most likely awaits her on the mountaintop. She’s come face to face with the stark reality of its empty illusions too many times over too many years of too many scenes that ran opposite to her dreams.

The fighting at the Shabbos table.

The aching muscles.

The disappointments.

Yet still with the inexplicable drive of the climber who confronts Everest with little more than spiked boots and ropes she continues her drive for the peak. There’s always the hope of what she may find on the peak of that holy mountain the promise of blissful Shabbos peace and joy. In the flurries and the cold the diminished oxygen toward the top she sometimes loses track of why she’s climbing and starts to wonder what she’s doing but only until she reaches the peak close to sunset when the smell of challahs fills the air and a special light fills the house and rests on the set table. Though sometimes that high only lasts for a few moments it’s still enough to get her to the next week when she prepares with even more zest adding two extra salads and even another type of fish.

This is the hunger — the spiritual drive of the Jew.

I learned that a baal teshuvah is first shown the top of the mountain and even allowed to live there for a while. Then he’s taken down to its foot and told “Now learn to climb it yourself.”

If you ever wonder what drives him so furiously in his climb know that he’s seen the top of the mountain he’s touched it he’s lived there — and his whole life is dedicated to getting back.

It’s a different kind of climb; though it may sometimes be clothed in matzoh meal and flour. it’s a holy hike up Matzoh Ball and Kishke Everest.