Why is this time of year so hard? What religious meaning is there in the grueling task of cleaning and preparing our homes for Pesach? Why does it have to be that way? Why did Hashem want us to have to go through all of this each year in preparation for Pesach?
The Day After the Night
One of the intriguing differences between us Jews and other nations is the way we perceive day and night. In the rest of the world, a full day begins in the morning and ends the next morning. The “day” ends at the end of the night, when a day begins with the rising sun. Monday is followed by Monday night, and then Tuesday begins in the morning. In Jewish tradition, however, this is not how it works. For us, a new “day” starts at dark, when night falls. We call Monday night “the night of the third day,” because “Tuesday” begins at night. And thus Shabbat begins not Saturday morning, but on Friday evening when the sun sets, and it ends late Saturday, at sunset. What is the meaning of this unique feature of Jewish practice?
Rav Shlomo Kluger offered what I think is a very beautiful and important explanation, suggesting that this arrangement reflects a critical aspect of the Jewish mindset. We believe that night leads to day; darkness leads to light. Our view of the world is such that “darkness” – life’s struggles, frustrations, disappointments and periods of depression – is seen as temporary stages leading to the brilliant “light” of joy and satisfaction. A Jew is supposed to live with hope and optimism, with the firm belief that any “dark” period he or she experiences will eventually give way to “light.” Negativity and despair are very “un-Jewish” traits. The Torah teaches us that no matter how “dark” things appear, there is always beauty, success, potential and joy lurking in the background that will yet appear on the horizon. It’s always just a matter of time until the sun rises. Every Jew needs to approach life with this mindset – that “night” is just a temporary stage leading to “day.”
In 1871, a devastating fire destroyed some three square miles of the city of Chicago, killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands upon thousands of Chicagoans homeless. After the fire, a group of businessmen, whose enterprises were destroyed by the fire, met to discuss their future. Everyone at the meeting decided they would leave Chicago and open businesses elsewhere. One fellow, however, a man named Marshall Field, who co-owned one of the most successful clothing stores at that time, pointed to the smoke and ashes in the window and announced, “I am going to rebuild my business right there.” And he did. Indeed, Marshall Field & Company was built and became a legendary clothing store in downtown Chicago.
Marshall Field wasn’t Jewish, but this attitude he displayed is very Jewish. When he looked at the rising smoke and rubble, he didn’t see destruction. He saw the potential for rebuilding. And this is how we are to look at every disappointment, every hardship, and every period of darkness in life – as an opportunity for something far greater to emerge.
This is what the month of Nissan is all about. The word ניסן is a derivative of the word נס – miracle – but it does not signify just miracles. The construction of this word is similar to that of the word סלחן with which we refer to Hashem in our Yom Kippur prayers. סלחן means not merely that Hashem forgives, but that He always forgives, that this is something He does regularly. We might translate סלחן as “forgiver,” referring to Hashem’s constant willingness to forgive to those who repent. If so, then ניסן means not just “miracle,” but “constant miracles.” Nissan signifies the fact that miracles occur all the time. This does not mean that the sea is going to split for us. What it means is that Hashem is always there helping us, even when we can’t see it. Even when we find ourselves submerged in darkness, we know that Hashem will, sooner or later, bring the light. The miracles of Yetziat Mitzrayim which we celebrate in Nissan are meant to inspire us with this faith and this optimism, assuring us that Hashem is always looking out for us, that every period of darkness is followed by a period of brilliant light, and that Hashem invariably comes through for us.
The Symbolism of Hametz
Why do most of us not live this way? Why do we see only “darkness” during difficult moments, without anticipating the “light” that is sure to follow?
The answer us that our minds are cluttered with negativity.
We’ve all been through a lot. We’ve all experienced a great deal of frustration, disappointment and aggravation that has created negative feelings which accumulate in our minds. We carry in our hearts a large, heavy load of anger, resentment, cynicism and angst that fester within us as a result of our negative experiences over the course of life. These feelings make it very difficult to live with energy, hope, optimism, vitality and fervor. They make us negative, unambitious and uninspired, as we feel we should not even bother trying to improve ourselves or our lives.
Enter Pesach – the time to rid ourselves of all this emotional “junk.”
A famous Rabbi in Egypt named the Radbaz wrote a fascinating piece about the meaning and significance of the prohibitions of hametz on Pesach. There is no prohibition like it in the Torah. Unlike all other forbidden foods, hametz may not even be owned; we are forbidden not only from eating hametz, but also from possessing hametz. Even the slightest amount of hametz in our food makes the food forbidden on Pesach, and so we need to turn our kitchen upside-down in preparation for the holiday. There is a special obligation to search one’s home the night before Pesach to ensure that there is no hametz, and we are also required to burn it. There is no obligation to burn a cheeseburger if we find it in our homes. These extreme laws are unique to hametz. Why?
The Radbaz explains that hametz is treated so severely because of what it represents. Both hametz and matzah are made from flour and water, but the difference is that hametz has had yeast added to it, which causes it to rise and transform into something completely different. This is exactly the way it is with people, too. We are created pure and pristine, wonderfully innocent like a young infant. But over the course of life, due to the “yeast” that enters our lives – our desires, our worries, our frustrations, our distractions, our pressures and our scars – we lose our pristine form. Like a large loaf of bread, we have been transformed from our true selves because of the “yeast” – all the accumulated negativity in our hearts, which sap our courage, our optimism, our joy and our faith.
The word ישראל, the name by which our nation is known, has within it the letters ש,א,ר, which spell the Hebrew word for “yeast” (“se’or”). If we remove these letters from the word ישראל, we are left with לי – “to me,” alluding to Hashem’s promise, והייתם לי סגולה – “You shall be for Me a treasured nation.” When we eliminate the “yeast,” the heaven burden of negativity within us, then we can live up to our potential as the Almighty’s special nation.
This is what cleaning for Pesach represents. It is about cleaning our minds, ridding ourselves of all the emotional “junk,” the baggage that weighs us down and prevents us from living the way we want to live. Our accumulated emotional clutter prevents us from seeing our true selves, from appreciating our potential, from seeing how great we can become, how wonderful we can make our lives, and how much we are capable of changing. The elimination of hametz from our homes is meant to symbolize the elimination of the “hametz” from ourselves, so we can rediscover who we really are and what we are capable of.
Freeing Ourselves
To take one admittedly silly example – as a kid I was a terrible eater. I refused to touch the vast majority of foods, convinced that I didn’t like them. My mother – like so many mothers – insisted that I try new foods, but I just knew that I didn’t the foods she gave me. I never tried them, but I had this notion in my head that I didn’t like it. I was irrationally stuck on disliking these foods. As an adult, I tried some of these foods and surprisingly discovered that I enjoyed them. I tried avocado salad – something I had never been willing to touch with a ten-foot pole – and I enjoyed it. I tried olives – which I always just knew that I didn’t like – and I really liked them.
We all have areas in our lives where we’re “stuck” the way I was “stuck” in my dislike of these foods. We have this “junk” in our minds that doesn’t allow us to see what we are able to do and what we are able to be. We fail to recognize our full potential because of all the “stuff” in our minds that obstructs our vision.
So many people assume they cannot feel happy and content because of [fill in the blank] which bothers them. So many people assume they cannot enjoy a happy marriage because their spouse is [fill in the blank] which makes them upset. So many people assume they cannot feel proud over a certain child because he has a problem with [fill in the blank] that makes him or her very difficult to raise. So many people assume that they are incapable of succeeding in a career or business, because they aren’t good at [fill in the blank].
All these people are not so different from little Joey Haber who always knew without a shadow of a doubt that he couldn’t like avocado and olives. We have this thing in our minds, some kind of mental block, that prevents us from extending outward. On Pesach, the holiday of freedom, we need to break free. We eliminate the “hametz” from our minds to free ourselves to reach our potential and to dream. Most adults don’t dream because they assume it’s too late, that they are stuck in their current position and can’t move. Pesach is the time to free ourselves from these imaginary chains which hold us back, and we do this by cleaning our minds like we clean our homes, ridding ourselves of all the negativity, all the discouragement and all the learned helplessness which has accumulated inside us.
The Haggadah’s Message of Optimism
There is one passage in the Haggadah which appears, at first glance, out of place, only very tangentially related to the theme of Yetziat Mitzrayim:
אמר רבי אלעזר בן עזריה: הרי אני כבן שבעים שנה ולא זכיתי שתאמר יציאת מצרים בלילות עד שדרשה בן-זומא.
Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah said: Here I am, like somebody seventy years old, yet I was not privileged to mention the Exodus from Egypt at night, until it was taught by Ben-Zoma.
Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah says that he never knew that the obligation to mention Yetziat Mitzrayim each day applies even at night, that it must be mentioned both in the daytime prayers and in the nighttime prayers. It was only when he heard this halachah taught by a different Rabbi, named Ben-Zoma, that he realized he had been mistaken.
Seemingly, this remark has no real relevance to the seder. Rabbi Elazar speaks here not of the special obligation to discuss Yetziat Mitzrayim on Pesach, but rather of the obligation to briefly mention it each day. Why do we bring this up at the seder?
One answer is that Rabbi Elazar’s comment conveys a very important and profound lesson. Rabbi Elazar had about as perfect a life as anyone could ever want. He came from the most distinguished family, descending from Ezra, one of the greatest Jews who ever lived. He was fabulously wealthy; the Talmud tells that when he tithed his cattle, the tithe consisted of 12,000 animals. He was also a brilliant scholar, appointed as the leading Rabbi of his generation at the age of eighteen. Ben-Zoma, by contrast, never reached anywhere near this stature. He did not even receive the title “Rabbi,” and was known instead as simply, “the son of Zoma.” And this is precisely what Rabbi Elazar marveled at – that he needed to learn an important halachah, which is relevant every day of a person’s life, from Ben-Zoma. As great as he was, he had what to learn from a scholar of lesser stature.
How is this relevant to the Pesach celebration? Because it shows us that we need to free ourselves from our imaginary limitations. We need to rip off the labels that we put on ourselves, that tell us that we are “x” and can never become “y.” These labels are the product of the “yeast” within us, all the negativity that has accumulated in our minds over the years.
The Haggadah conveys this message no less powerfully elsewhere, as well – right at the beginning of the maggid section. We introduce maggid with a seemingly peculiar proclamation: הא לחמא עניא די אכלו אבהתנא בארעא דמצרים, כל דכפין ייתי וייכול – “This is the bread of affliction which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt; all who are hungry shall come and eat.” In this passage we make two statements: we declare that our ancestors ate matzah, the “bread of affliction,” during the years of oppression in Egypt, and then we announce that all the poor are invited to join our seder. What is the explanation of this passage?
As we sit down to the seder, we draw the attention of all the “poor” – all those who feel stuck, trapped in some undesirable condition – to the matzah, to the remarkable story of our ancestors. They were impoverished slaves in a foreign land, but then emerged as a proud, free, extraordinary nation. Am Yisrael had fallen to lower depths than any nation could possibly fall, but they eventually rose back up. Their period of darkness did not last. This story shows us that nothing is permanent. The message of Pesach is that whatever kind of “poverty” it is that we suffer from, it does not have to last. Miracles happen. Things change. Night becomes morning. We need to free ourselves from our negativity and despair and trust in Hashem and in ourselves, firmly believing that we are not stuck, that we can have dreams and pursue them.
There are countless examples in history of people who refused to be stuck, to be chained, to limit themselves through despair. Helen Keller was deaf and blind, but she became an activist who inspired untold numbers of people. Celebrated Scottish poet Robert Burns was raised in a destitute family and was illiterate as a child. Beethoven was deaf. Writer John Milton was blind. Albert Einstein was a bad student. All these people refused to label themselves, or allow other people to label them. They kept the “hametz” out of their minds and believed in their potential to achieve. They were ambitious and optimistic, and this enabled them to find their inner potential which many others in their situation would never have seen.
Somebody once showed me a cute observation about the English word “impossible.” It is actually a combination of “I’m possible.” So many things we assume are impossible are actually very possible. The choice is ours. We can either remain enslaved by our “hametz,” by our accumulated negativity, or we can clear out the hametz to free ourselves from this slavery. This is what Pesach is about – calling on us to rid ourselves of all our internal “hametz” and grant ourselves the freedom to turn “impossible” into “I’m possible.”
An Educational Challenge
This message is especially critical when it comes to our youth.
Many youngsters in our community reach adulthood in a state of fear. Parents continuously emphasize to them how hard it is in today’s world to support a family given the high cost of living and the fiercely competitive marketplace. Knowing how hard they, their parents and their grandparents worked in order to succeed, today’s adult generation repeatedly impresses upon the youth the need for responsibility, hard work and struggle.
This is all understandable, and important, but there is one crucial element that’s missing: encouragement. We don’t want to produce young men who are too scared to get married and build families, who are intimidated by all the warnings that have been imprinted on their minds about the difficult, complicated world we live in. We want our youngsters to enter adulthood with faith, confidence, optimism and resolve. Alongside the message of responsibility and hard work, they must also hear encouragement and trust. They need to be reminded that they have lots of potential, that miracles happen, that our community continues to thrive and flourish despite the great challenges that we face, that they should believe in themselves and never give up. Pesach, when we teach our children about our freedom from Egyptian bondage, reminds us to impress upon our children this message of “freedom” – that they are free to reach for the stars, that they must never feel trapped or confined, that every person has the potential for greatness.
This educational message, of course, begins with us, with the example we set for our children. If we live with optimism and vitality, believing in ourselves and in our capacity to grow and achieve, the youth will imbibe this positive energy and learn to believe in themselves.
A man once called me excitedly to tell me a beautiful story. Several months earlier, his friend was making a bar-mitzvah for his son. This friend was experiencing serious health problems, which made it difficult for him to earn a living. As a result, he could not afford the bar-mitzvah. A number of friends got together to raise money to pay for the celebration, but they still did not come up with enough money for a band to play music. The man who told me this story graciously offered to personally cover the cost of the band. The father was so grateful and warmly thanked his generous friend. The man told the father it was no big deal, and that when the tide turns and he recovers financially, he would not have to pay him back.
Sure enough, the tide did turn. The man regained his health and his strength, and he went back to work. It wasn’t long before he was once again back on his feet financially. He returned to his friend with a check, insisting that he wanted to repay him for the money he spent on the band for the bar-mitzvah.
“I already told you,” the friend said, “you do not need to return the money. Thank G-d, I can afford it. It’s really unnecessary.”
“No,” the other man insisted. “It would really make me happy to pay you back. I don’t care what you do with the money. You can give it to somebody else if you want. But please let me pay it back.”
This is a beautiful story on several levels. It exemplifies not only the incredible and unparalleled hesed performed by people in our community, but also the wonderful spirit of hope and optimism. Neither of these men gave up. Even as the man was helping out his friend in his time of need, he was already confidently talking about the time when his situation will improve. And his friend did not wallow in self-pity or despair – as soon as he regained his health, he picked himself up and started his life again, and he succeeded.
Every time we finish cleaning an area of our homes for Pesach, we should stand outside and look at it, appreciating how it looks so clean and fresh. And we should then think to ourselves that we can make our minds this clear and fresh, too; that we can gain a new perspective on ourselves, clearing away all the “junk” so we can see our potential, so we can recognize all the many opportunities we never before thought we have, and then go ahead and seize them.