Unwrap

Pesach is the holiday that teaches us to rid ourselves of the dross in our lives. It is the holiday of the eradication of Hametz — the fermenting element needed for dough to rise. Get rid of the yeast and, with the same remaining ingredients, our daily bread becomes the food of angels, a vehicle for holy ascent. In other words: Holiness is not about accumulating — it is about divesting ourselves of the extraneous.

This Hametz exists within each of us. It is the ingredient that causes anger to bubble up, resentment to arise, and prejudice to form. Hametz is both the cause and the result of the accumulation of stubbornly held opinions, ancient slights, and long-held grudges.

When a human being comes into this world the human is a ball of light wrapped in translucent skin. A holy ball of light. As the human grows, Hametz wraps around our souls and our hearts like linen around a mummy, preserving all the anguish within. Hametz wraps and wraps around our souls until the eternal light that shines within us is dimmed, dulled and can no longer be seen.

One of the names of God in the Koran, as my friend and teacher, Shaykha Halima Krausen taught me, is A-Tawab — the one who turns, who causes you to turn.

I love that name of God. On Pesach, A-Tawab, God the Turner, says to us: turn, human, spin around and unwrap all these layers you’ve acquired, de-mummify, remove the Hametz and get back to your primal self so that your holy light, your essence, can be seen again.

We are commanded to find the chametz within us, gather it and burn it. This is the true meaning of a burnt offering; an offering that is a pleasing scent unto God. This is the offering we give those we love when we attempt to purge ourselves from past transgressions. “See how much I love you,” we say, “I’m cleaning house. I’m getting rid of all that displeases you and I’m doing so for you, as a sign of my love.”

Notice how we are not asked to gather the very best in us as an offering, but rather the very worst in us. This is key. This is the Ikar – the main point.

The second verse in the first chapter of the book of Leviticus says: “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them — when a person brings from you a sacrifice to the Lord — from the animal, from the cattle or from the flock you shall bring your sacrifice.”

How are we to understand this statement? Is this a simple, straightforward instruction about the species to be sacrificed? Or is there something deeper being addressed? Obviously, the Torah means what it says and should be understood as such, but if that was all the Torah was addressing, I believe it would have faded away into the dust of history ages ago.

A Hasidic teaching instructs us to look at the wording and see that what we are really being asked to bring near to God is the animal within us — the beast inside. We are told to offer up the material, physical, earthbound element within us, our Neshama b’hemit, our beastly soul.

All of us, hopefully, have qualities we are pleased with and would love for others to notice. But we also have qualities we work hard to transform, subdue, or even eradicate. Most of the time we wish those qualities would simply evaporate and disappear from within us.

The Torah commands us to bring our least desirable qualities as an offering, not because they are beautiful and pleasing, but rather because they represent our deepest, most painful struggle. We are, after all, Yisrael — those who will struggle with God — and it is within that struggle that our redemption is found. It is the very struggle with our inner demons that ennobles us and lifts us up even higher than angels.

It is that coarse, material soul within us, the twin sister of our Godly soul, that bears the sweetest fruits of our labor — that is why we are asked to offer it up as a token of our love.

The Hametz we carry within us year-round is the expression of that beastly soul; it is the Pharaoh within us, yearning to mummify all that is sweet, precious, and pure within us. It casts us into the darkness of ancient Egypt’s penultimate plague.

So, let us clean house, spiritually and physically. Let us burn the Hametz of our anger and hurt, our pride and our prejudice, but let us remember this: We are commanded to rid ourselves of Hametz on Passover — ourselves — not others. We are bound by our obligation to make the world a better place for all of humanity. None of us are holier than other peoples, rather we are commanded to strive for holiness, to strive to be better human beings, to bear witness to the fact that all human beings were created in the image and likeness of the One God.

So, rejoice! Spring has arrived and Pesach is here. The time of our liberation is at hand. The exodus from our narrow straits is re-enacted once more. Let us not waste this opportunity to shed the anger, resentment, and hatred that have built up inside of us and let us shine the light of goodness upon this suffering world.

Chag Same’ach.