Removing Hametz

passoverPassover is a major Jewish holiday that commemorates the Jewish people's liberation from slavery and Exodus from Egypt. Its Hebrew name is Pesakh. Its name derives from the tenth plague, in which God "passed over" the homes of the Jewish firstborn, slaying only the Egyptian firstborn. Passover is celebrated for a week, and many diaspora Jews celebrate for eight days. The holiday begins at home at a seder meal and ritual the first (and sometimes second) night. Jews tell the story of the Exodus using a text called the haggadah, and eat specific food (matzah, maror, haroset, etc). cleaning
is not merely
the search
for the last crumb
with the gentle sweep of a feather

but knowing that
the manna from heaven
you’ve carried with you
is actually a bread loaf from down deep
made in the fires of an unchosen past
that has left you lonely and starved. 

when we choose to glimpse the path to our affliction
we not only face it but face ourselves
and the false fullness and mindlessness begin to fade
as a new way of being fed becomes possible: mind, body, and spirit.