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CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS: A PASSOVER BLESSING
MARCH 2007
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Photo by
Chris Gaines |
"WE EACH MUST REMEMBER THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT AS IF WE TOO HAD BEEN REDEEMED." — PASSOVER HAGADDAH
Dear Friends,
I love when my house has been completely cleaned. There is something really refreshing about it. It has the aroma of newness – I am starting with a clean slate. And with Passover approaching, this whole idea of cleaning has got me thinking.
For Passover, it is not that we should clean – like when company is coming over, or before a vacation, or in preparation for a relative's visit. For Passover we have to physically cleanse our homes of chametz (leavened products) in order to get ready for the holiday.
When I was growing up, this yearly deep cleaning was one of my favorite family rituals. Whenever my parents and I were done cleaning the house for Passover, my mother would proudly look around and see the neatly stacked boxes of Passover products in the pantry and the house sparkling--and she would say - "It's beginning to look a lot like Pesach."
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And it was. The house was ready, and so were we. Our physical cleaning did more than ready the house for a holiday. It readied us spiritually. It prepared us, metaphorically, to remember our Exodus from Egypt.
It is remarkable that physical cleaning can be spiritually significant. More profound than color-coded boxes of Manischewitz
matzah and clean floors, is the process of becoming new. The Israelites began anew once they left Egypt. And so we begin anew
with our clean houses. We have pushed away the dirt of our busy lives. We feel liberated, “as if we too had been redeemed
from Egypt.” We are free to continue on our journey. And to tell the great story of our Exodus from Egypt.
How interesting that there is a higher purpose to physical cleaning–that we actually need the pragmatic, mundane task of scrubbing our floors, changing our dishes, dusting off our coffee tables, to allow ourselves to be spiritually cleansed and more open to the lessons of our history!
This month, as we prepare for the Passover holiday, let us do more than just clean our houses and reorganize our kitchens. Let us consider the process and meaning of the cleaning itself. Let us see beyond the dirt that clouds our everyday lives. Let us see the world anew and our responsibility towards it. May we remember the Exodus from Egypt physically, viscerally and spiritually, but not selfishly. Let us be
reminded, as well, that others in the world cry for the same freedom and release that we are celebrating. Let us separate these eight days from those before and after and contemplate the responsibilities God has given to us with this gift of emancipation.
May this be our blessing this month.
Always,
Rabbi Glenn Ettman
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