Freedom implies expansiveness – the chance to spread our wings, both physically and metaphorically, or spiritually. So it can seem frustrating and confusing that preparing for Pesach, our Festival of Freedom, entails a cleaning practice that can feel more like a lengthy, even oppressive, chore. Over Jewish history, in many communities, the cleaning out of our homes to remove hametz [bread and other leavened specific grains] has turned into a full spring cleaning.
Sometimes, we have music playing, and I’m schlepping things in and out of the kitchen while feeling part of something hopeful, a combination of anticipating the renewed, clean space and looking forward to seders and the week of special foods we’ll have during the week. Other times, I find myself feeling resentful to be spending a sunny spring day carefully cleaning out cabinets and drawers, spending hours switching out dishware and kashering utensils.
Rabbi Toba Spitzer teaches, “Passover is ultimately about freedom and new beginnings. The exodus from Egypt is a birth story – the birth of the Israelite people, and of a new kind of society, covenanted in love and justice. Passover is also a spring holiday, celebrating the first harvest and the new birth of the flocks. So part of the practice of clearing out hametz is linked to this sense of beginning, of new possibilities – clearing out the old, to make room for the new.”
At the end of the process of cleaning and clearing, there is a playful, symbolic version of the removal of the hametz. Someone hides a few pieces of bread around the house, and others, often children, search for it in the dark, using just a candle and feather to search and remove the last of the hametz. So this year, I am wondering if I can keep this playful, symbolic version in mind as we do the actual cleaning. Can I imagine while wiping the crumbs out of drawers that I am doing something akin to searching in the dark by candlelight, the sense of playing hide and seek, of aiming to find something and capturing it, and of clearing out what is not needed to make space for celebration and creativity?
Liberation includes both serious business and lighthearted play. May our preparations and our seders include this full range of thought, ritual, conversation and commitment to this core of our people’s story and culture.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller
Tzav (Leviticus 6:1-8:36) Torah Reading Mar. 28, 2026: Serious and Playful Passover Prep
March 26, 2026 by Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller • D'var Torah
Freedom implies expansiveness – the chance to spread our wings, both physically and metaphorically, or spiritually. So it can seem frustrating and confusing that preparing for Pesach, our Festival of Freedom, entails a cleaning practice that can feel more like a lengthy, even oppressive, chore. Over Jewish history, in many communities, the cleaning out of our homes to remove hametz [bread and other leavened specific grains] has turned into a full spring cleaning.
Sometimes, we have music playing, and I’m schlepping things in and out of the kitchen while feeling part of something hopeful, a combination of anticipating the renewed, clean space and looking forward to seders and the week of special foods we’ll have during the week. Other times, I find myself feeling resentful to be spending a sunny spring day carefully cleaning out cabinets and drawers, spending hours switching out dishware and kashering utensils.
Rabbi Toba Spitzer teaches, “Passover is ultimately about freedom and new beginnings. The exodus from Egypt is a birth story – the birth of the Israelite people, and of a new kind of society, covenanted in love and justice. Passover is also a spring holiday, celebrating the first harvest and the new birth of the flocks. So part of the practice of clearing out hametz is linked to this sense of beginning, of new possibilities – clearing out the old, to make room for the new.”
At the end of the process of cleaning and clearing, there is a playful, symbolic version of the removal of the hametz. Someone hides a few pieces of bread around the house, and others, often children, search for it in the dark, using just a candle and feather to search and remove the last of the hametz. So this year, I am wondering if I can keep this playful, symbolic version in mind as we do the actual cleaning. Can I imagine while wiping the crumbs out of drawers that I am doing something akin to searching in the dark by candlelight, the sense of playing hide and seek, of aiming to find something and capturing it, and of clearing out what is not needed to make space for celebration and creativity?
Liberation includes both serious business and lighthearted play. May our preparations and our seders include this full range of thought, ritual, conversation and commitment to this core of our people’s story and culture.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller