It happens every year.  I know Passover is coming.  I see the introduction of Passover foods at the supermarket and then, BAM, it’s already here.  Passover is in a week, but people have already started and finished their major cleaning and are stocking up on Passover foods.

“Cleaning for Passover” means a lot of things to a lot of different people.  If you keep kosher, then “cleaning for Passover” means that you have cleaned all traces of bread, leavening, and any of the other forbidden grains out of your home.  Often that entails moving large appliances and being shocked at how much dirt and grime is under there, so then “cleaning for Passover” turns into a major spring cleaning effort.

Then once the house is “clean for Passover” you can’t bring any bread products into your house until after Passover.  If you’re like me, the idea of not eating bread makes me crave baguettes, sandwiches, cake, and every other flour-based product on the market.  I’m sure people manage to not eat bread (Atkin’s Diet anyone?), but around Passover, I can’t think of anything I want to eat except bread.

Some years I clean for Passover and others I don’t.  Interestingly, I found that if I don’t clean for Passover, I tend to have more ants in and around the house.  I imagine that our ancestors noticed that they had fewer bugs if they did some spring cleaning and the cleaning frenzy was conveniently timed around Passover when they weren’t supposed to have any bread products around anyway.  Coincidence?

Some thinkers take the idea of leavening into the spiritual realm.  What is bread if not substance filled with air?  How does a person who is puffed up with himself or herself appear to others?  Passover cleaning can also be done within to rid yourself of arrogance.

Another spiritual avenue gets to the heart of who you are as a person.  At first Moses didn’t have courage.  After he killed the slave master, he ran away to the desert.  He could have had a fine life, but then a burning bush spoke to him (and was not consumed).  If a burning bush tells you to go to Pharaoh to demand that he free the people of Israel, are you going to do it?  If you have a speech impediment (Moses did), do you think to yourself, “yeah, I’ll just clearly tell Pharaoh what’s what.”  Luckily, Moses had a brother (Aaron) who was willing to stand up with him and demand freedom, but Moses himself (and Aaron) had to have the courage and faith to do what needed to be done.

Standing on the shores of the Red Sea, the people of Israel bitterly complained.  They had Pharaoh’s army chasing them and the sea in front of them.  They wailed that it would be better to be slaves than die out here.  Moses assured them that the path would open before them, but they had to see it with their own eyes.  So the sea parted and they went forward.  But was it enough?  No.  After all they saw and experienced, they still felt the need for a golden calf so that they could have physical thing to worship.  Forty years in the desert would be enough time to raise up a new generation who only knew freedom, who would be courageous, and who would have faith.

The Exodus is a Hero’s Journey for Moses as well as for the nation of Israelites.  We can be inspired and re-inspired by the story.  Each year we have the opportunity to find something new.  Are we going to find courage within ourselves?  Will we demand to see everything with our own eyes before we have faith in something?  Will we be courageous and free and then fill ourselves with our own arrogance about how fabulously enlightened we are?

In the meanwhile, I think I’ll move my refrigerator and clean underneath it.  I hope not to find anything new there, but perhaps I’ll find something that I lost in the past year.  Ah, well, that will be a spiritual story for another day.