A Bissel Torah – 04/06/2020

My garden is starting to bloom. It is officially Spring. Time for Pessah. This year we will all celebrate Pessah in a very different way. The gatherings will be done through technology. I am being very selective about what I buy for my home to eat during the holiday, and because there are only going to be three of us in the house, I am definitely not cooking as much as I usually do. I am exploring, with curiosity, how different my celebration of the holiday will be, and what will not change.
One thing that is not changing is that I am cleaning my home for Pessach.The elimination of hametz from my home is very different than sanitizing for COVID-19, and I am thinking about the ways in which this holiday’s insights can help me get through this difficult time of physical distancing, uncertainty, and insecurity. I am getting rid of hametz – both physical and spiritual. Hametz is a mixture of water and flour from 5 grains (wheat, barley, oats, spelt, rye) that stands without being cooked for more than 18 minutes. I feel that this physical cleaning teaches me, every year, a spiritual lesson. Getting rid of tangible hametz makes me think of the process of getting rid of my spiritual hametz, the words and thoughts that ferment in my soul. The cleaning of my spiritual hametz involves letting go, getting rid of excesses, in order to make me feel lighter as I face the future and the journey ahead. I get rid of physical hametz in order to experience a spiritual cleansing that leaves the things that oppressed me behind. I shed the constricting hametz so I can experience freedom. It is a journey supported by the Hebrew language. The word in Hebrew for Egypt is Mitzrayim. In Hebrew, the name of the place means “the narrow place”, or the “tight place”. A part of the journey we go through every Pessah is to leave the tight, narrow space, and be ready and free to travel into the future. This year I am very conscious of the way in which the freedom that comes from the physical and spiritual cleansing of my home has the potential to help me leave the tight, narrow space of physical distancing, uncertainty, and insecurity. I am certain that when we all act responsibly, when we all take care and observe the measures of this new normal, we will overcome this challenge and find a global solution to combat this sickness.

Pessah and the holiday’s preparations, this year, are both about the rituals and the spiritual preparation for the future. We don’t know what will happen, and all we can do is be centered and healthy to face that future. Tomorrow evening, at 8:00pm, please join me in a healing service to rid ourselves from spiritual hametz. The zoom link will be on our “This Week at Etz Hayim.”I hope that after our service we will be ready to have this different Pessah, filling our homes with good food, and with the joyous sound of prayer, learning and song. I also hope that we will enjoy a time of spiritual freedom. Our Kehillah Kedoshah, our Sacred Community, is here to help us all enjoy a holiday with many physical changes, yet filled with spiritual growth, expansion, and freedom.  

Bivrachot shalom uvryiut,
Rabbi Lia Bass

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