Pesach 5784

פסח תשפ”ד 5784
💡Idea for Pesach-  Step 4 Cleaning
חמץ ומצה
As part of the preparations for the amazing chag of Pesach🍷, it’s important for us not just to prepare our homes by cleaning and buying everything we need to observe the holiday. It is also important to try to prepare ourselves spiritually💥. Every holiday has a special light that we can experience and internalize. After the amazing night of Leil Haseder, the main mitzvah of the holiday is that for seven days we only eat matzah🤩. Just as we have the laws of Pesach where we learn about kashering our kitchen, the prohibition of chametz, and eating matzah; so too the tzadikim and Rabbis teach about the spiritual aspects of eating matzah and removing all chametz. Cleaning our homes in preparation is not only something physical.
It is taught that matzah represents healing and emunah, faith💖. Chametz on the other hand represents the evil inclination and our bad character traits🤯. As we enter Pesach, we want to be free of all that holds us back from true freedom🚀.
Many years ago I learned about a powerful tool💥 for preparing for Pesach from a dear friend and teacher, Rav Micha Hyman. He gave a simple, but powerful idea: as you prepare, take for yourself two pieces of paper. On one of them we write down🖊 all of the chametz in our lives. Everything that holds us back and that we want to be healed from it. This piece of paper with our spiritual chametz we will burn on the morning of Erev Pesach as we burn our physical chametz🔥. On the second piece of paper we will write down all of our matzah. Everything good which we want for the current year and for the future. Everything we want to grow in and change for the better. Our prayers, our goodwill🙏. We can pray for our own personal matzah on the Seder night, all throughout Pesach, and throughout the year. The more that we pray and express our רצונות, our good desires, the more they become a part of our life.
In a similar light💡, Step 4 of the 12 Step program teaches us to take a moral inventory of ourselves. To get to know our souls better; to recognize our strengths and our weaknesses. To be honest with our fears, the grudges we hold inside, and the actions we would like to make amends for. What are my good qualities, what do I like about myself?🤔 What do I dislike? What do I want to improve? Step 4 usually falls at the same time of year as Pesach and the preparations for the holiday. I think that this is not a coincidence, since the step encourages us to do the same spiritual work of growing internally.
Rebbe Nachman teaches that the month of Nisan is a time of teshuva❤, just like Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. This is an amazing insight, because we usually only think of Tishrei as a time of special prayers and introspection. However, Rebbe Nachman teaches that this month of Nisan has the same power!🔥 This is a powerful time of the year, just like the holy days of the month of Tishrei, to find renewal and teshuva, as we prepare to receive the amazing light of Pesach!🙏
Chag Sameach