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Drash Given on the First Day of Passover
Given by Robert Agus on April 3, 2007 (12 Nissan 5767
)
Preparation for Pesach: The Role of Chometz
The preparation for the first Pesach began with the establishment of the month of Pesach, Aviv/Nisan, as the first month of the year and then the setting aside of a lamb on the 10th day for the Pesach sacrifice. Preparation continued with roasting of the lamb and eating it with matza and maror, together.
These acts were intended to prepare the Israelites for the Great Event itself, the Yetziat Mitzraiyim, an Eternal Moment - a time which is present but also rooted in the reality of the past and dreams of the future. An Eternal Moment transforms all those who experience it, but to fully experience it, we must prepare.
In the words of the Haggadah: "In every generation one is obligated to see him/herself as if s/he went forth from Mitzraiyim." We are not only to retell and to recall but to actually experience - to enter into the Eternal Moment and experience the transformation. Observance of this event requires experiencing anew the transformation "..from slavery to freedom, from sadness to joy, from mourning to celebration, from darkness to a great light and from servitude to redemption (geulah)".
How can we who are grounded in our time and its spirit (or lack thereof) truly know the power of Yetziat Mitzraiyim - a going out from a time/space of restriction to the Eternal Moment where Holiness is present to all of our senses. It can be a moment when we truly live in God's time and space where everything is connected through dynamic harmony; our eyes see each of the colors and the rainbow; our ears hear the note and the melody, our fingers touch the warp and woof and the cloth and our heart knows its soul and the Soul.
There are as many ways to prepare as there are parts of our bodies multiplied by as many of us as there are. Here are a couple of hints for preparation.
One is the realization that the difference between a place and a time of alienation and its opposite a place and a time of life- giving wholeness is a very small. In Hebrew, a word for exile (alienation of self from Self and source from Source) is Golah while the word for redemption (wholeness) is Geulah. The only difference is the letter aleph. Aleph is a letter with no sound, simply an opening up - an act of opening, and, hence, vulnerability. It is also the letter with the numerical value of one which, if we are open, leads to the awareness of the One. This little silent letter can lead us to the power of a unified meaningful life - a geulah - that allows us to share in the glow of the Ultimate Reality of the One.
Another suggestion comes from the Jewish traditional wisdom of linking the performance of ritual acts, arbitrary perhaps in themselves, but meaningful through the blessing of intentional meaning, so that they become ways of preparing ourselves to experience transformation.
One series of Pesach rituals that are meant to help us enter into the Gates of the Eternal Moment of Geulah are those connected with Chometz. The Torah commands us to not possess Chometz and not to eat it (and not to benefit from it) during the week of Pesach. Rather we are commanded to eat Matzos and Maror - the foods which bring up both a memory of affliction and bitterness, but also of a redeemed future since they were the foods on the night of Redemption. (See and hear, as you take your first piece of Matzah, that matzot and mitzvoth are, in Hebrew, spelled exactly the same - only the vocalization is different - a teaching that our intended inflection alone is enough for a transformational experience.)
Why pick on Chometz? In the Talmud (Berachos) we are told that chometz/leavened is analogous to the Yetzer Ha Ra, the inclination toward evil. Why and how should it be eliminated? It represents the Ego, the individual's drives to acquire, to possess, to beat the other, to be a "chazer", to collect more manna than we need and to refuse to share the paschal lamb with others. Elsewhere the Rabbis teach that without the Yetzer "no house would be built in Israel" - in other words, progress in the material world where we live most of the time requires this drive, this source of moving forward and grabbing more than our fair share - it is why we take entrepreneurial risk which can benefit all of us. But by its very aggressive and competitive essence, the Yetzer limits access to the way of unity, of unconditional love, of openness to all that the created works offers in itself and not through our manipulation. Chometz/Yetzer Ha Ra is at home in Golah/Exile not Geulah/Redemption; it is at home and necessary in the unredeemed world of 51 weeks of the year but not the week of Pesach.
How do we eliminate the chometz? We thoroughly clean the house, we change dishes and recipes, we shop differently and look for colorful packages that seem to cost ever more. We enter into a ritualistic and formulaic "sale/mechirat ha chometz" in case actual destruction is too burdensome or costly.
In addition, there is a ritual which aims at the nullification and destruction of chometz: b'dikas and biur chometz. On the night before, by the light of a candle we (ideally we have at least two participants "for it is not good for a person to live alone") hide and then search for 10 pieces of chometz. On the morning before the Seder we destroy, usually and most dramatically, by fire, these collected remnants of our chometz. On both occasions we say that this collected remnant represents all of our chometz and let it be nullified, made ownerless and as the dust of the earth.
How do these acts help prepare us to experience Geulah, the past and the future and, most importantly, the partial moments of Geulah that are always available to us if we are open to them? We look for 10 pieces because 10 is the number of a minyan - Chometz/yetzer ha ra is most dangerous when it takes hold of a community. Another reason for 10 is because 10 are the number of the sefirot; the stages of Divine emanation in the world. This connection teaches that we must purify each part of our life is we are to start again. We hide and search in semi-darkness because we learn that evil takes hold and flourishes where the lights of holiness are most dim; we need to root evil out by going deep. For the fullest experience of Pesach, we need not only kosher kitchens but also kosher kishkes(insides).
As for the destruction through fire and formula, this is the one sacrifice-like act that we still have. It is very powerful to put the bag containing the chometz on a fire and see it become dust and ashes. We are figuratively killing it and the Yetzer, at least temporarily. In the words of the Bratslaver Rebbe: "may it be your will, God... that just as I have removed chometz from my house so should you remove the spirit of uncleanness from the world...'
There is another important teaching about preparation through the elimination of chometz. In the Mishnah Pesachim it is written: "we may have fear that a weasel may have dragged chometz form one room to another or from one spot to another. Because if so we must also fear from courtyard to courtyard and from town to town - the matter is endless". The process of elimination and destruction is great but it will never be completed. By hiding pieces of chometz we bring about the possibility of crumbs. By burning the chometz, pieces and crumbs float away with the smoke and reenter our possessions, especially if gust of wind comes by to see what we are doing. Relax the ritual is only a ritual. In our material reality, the chometz will remain and the Yetzer will return. But we can and must try to temporarily cleanse ourselves.
So now we are ready to use food as ways of directing our intention - food as kavannah- a key part of the Seder which is ritual in the form of a meal. At the beginning of the Seder when we acknowledge Matzah, we have an opportunity to add devotional intent to transform the world through our ritual and experience the Eternal Moment of Geulah. "Ho lachma anya" - "This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Mitzraiyim. All who are hungry, come and eat. All who are needy, come and celebrate Peasch. Now we are here; next year may we be in the Land of Israel. Now we are slaves; next year may we be free." We are saying that, by inviting the hungry and the needy to share with us, we transform the bread of scarcity and restricted access to that of plenty and sharing. As we share with others, we break the bonds of artificial limits and become free - by showing love to others we share in the Eternal Reality of Redemption --Wholeness through Holiness.
May all of us be blessed to experience anew the moments of connection and the Eternal Moment of Redemption that Pesach offers.
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