Guide to Spiritual Cleaning

If I were more organized, I’d be writing this a month ago; but I’m not, because I only hope to start my Pesach (Passover) cleaning in earnest this week, and that’s when G-d sent me an amazing insight: however I’m relating to my Pesach cleaning, that’s showing me what my spiritual ‘chometz’ is too!

For days, I simply couldn’t get started on the Pesach cleaning this year. With only three weeks left until Pesach,  I still have not even opened a drawer, or moved a piece of furniture. I was pretending it was fine and OK, but on the inside? I was starting to feel so much mounting stress and tension.

So I did what I always do when I’m stuck, and I went to talk to G-d about it at the grave of the Baba Sali. I got a lot of insights in that praying session, about things that me and my husband were ‘stuck’ on in other areas of our life – and two days’ later, I’d cleaned the whole of upstairs.

In this materialistic, superficial world we live in, it’s so easy to forget that cleaning for Pesach is mainly a spiritual endeavor – if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be looking for our chometz by candle light in the middle of the night, when you can barely see anything anyway.

So, with G-d’s help, I’ve put together this handy guide to recognizing the real chometz we need to be working on, as we’re going round the house. Like the bread stuff, once we’ve found it, we can do as Rabbi Chaim David Azulai (the CHIDA) suggested, and burn it all up in our chometz bonfire, the morning before Seder night.

Scenario 1 – The Clean Couch

I just spent two hours cleaning my couch from every last crumb. I was down the back of it with a toothpick, with a toothbrush, with a wipey, with a pair of tweezers… you name it.

I warn everyone in my family to STAY AWAY from the couch. It’s a chometz-free zone. A few minutes later, the 10 year old decides to open a packet of pretzels on the couch, and they go everywhere.

I react with:

• Anger – at the kid, at G-d, at Moshe Rabbenu (“who decided we should do this dumb holiday in the first place?!?!?)
• Frustration (“I can’t believe it! I’m going to have to waste another two hours re-doing the couch, and I’m already on such a tight schedule that I’m not planning to sleep until Shabbos!)
• Hysterical crying (“The couch! The couch! The couch!”)
• Depression and despair (“There’s no point cleaning anything. I’m never going to get it all done. It’s too hard for me. It’s too much for me. I knew I should have married that Lutheran Baptist guy who proposed in College…)
• Vengeance – now the kid is going to have to redo the couch, AND clean the kitchen, AND cook seder, just to make up for it all.
• Blame – it’s all my husband’s fault! If it wasn’t for him, I’d be living a completely different life… OR, self-blame: I can’t believe I didn’t put an electrified fence around that couch; OR, tied the kid to a chair, OR, sent them to live in the shed for a week, OR, blaming the kid – he did it on purpose!
• Hatred (I hate Pesach! I hate cleaning! I hate the stupid couch!)
• Jealousy (Why can’t I be in the Dead Sea this year, and sell my house to Ahmed of Gaza, like my neighbor / my sister / my friend?)

Scenario 2 – The Completely Filthy Couch

A couple of months ago, 6-year-old Moshe dumped a whole bag of cornflakes all over the couch. I tidied it up – enough – and I promised myself that I’d do a much better job when Pesach came. We’re there, and I’m completely overwhelmed and can’t face the couch. I’m making excuses; I’m secretly worrying and panicking about it while pretending everything is A-OK; I’m procrastinating, I’m not sleeping at night from the stress and anxiety.

What’s going on here? I’m:

• Scared
• Fearful
• In denial
• Overwhelmed
• Pretending there is no problem, when there really is
• Completely paralyzed
• Worried someone (my neighbor! My mum!) is going to find out that I didn’t really do a great job on the couch, and then I’m really in trouble…

Scenario 3: The Super Clean Couch That Stays Clean

The couch was cleaned by Purim, and my kids and husband know that if they so much as breathe chometz in the house, I’m going to strangle them.

The house is all done, so now I have time to pop into my neighbors and let them know that I’m two weeks’ ahead of schedule, so they can start feeling really bad (about themselves) and really impressed (about how together and organized I am).

This is what so many of us are secretly aiming for, at least in our heads, so where on earth can the ‘spiritual’ chometz be in this scenario?

Maybe it’s:

• Competition
• Comparison
• One-upmanship
• Superiority and condescension
• Arrogance
• Serious control-freak issues – those kids are going to need therapy for years to get over the pre-Pesach boot camp at home

Whatever your chametz is, get it out of there! Notice what’s going on, write it down, and then burn it with the leftover cheerios on Monday morning. While it’s burning, take a minute and ask G-d to help you burn all that ‘spiritual chametz’ up, and to get it out of your life, just like He did that moldy half pita you found under the fridge….

(In case you were wondering, my ‘couch reaction’ was to have a severe bout of despair, and then ask my husband if we could buy a new one…);-)

May G-d bless us all with a great Pesach, the energy to clean everything we need to, and homes that are free of chametz of every type. Amen.