Once we were slaves in the land of Egypt

Pesach is a crazy time in the Jewish calendar, its kicks off the holiday season and it’s a big one. I’ve spent the last two weeks dreading it, complaining about everything involved with it and praying to gd that I’ll be ready in time with it and freaking out that I won’t. But last night I remembered something, that amid the rush of work, school, of getting my life together enough to check out for a week and a half I’d forgotten something.

I’d forgotten why. Why it’s important to clean out ones literal and figurative house. Why it’s important to take an accounting of what I’ve done in this last year and remember that it’s okay. It’s okay that I haven’t done everything I need to do, and yet I’ve managed to come a long way. Last year at this time I moved to Boston. After coming home from Israel, I broke free and found a place I could call my own. Last year the story of Am Israel’s fight to do the same resonated with me for that reason.

This year it’s a different story. Over the course of the last year I’ve settled down, found a place I can call my own, settled in for a while and filled my life with things that will ensure, for the foreseeable future that I’m staying where I am. The uncertainly that I felt last year is not gone, it’s just changed and I was thinking about that last night. About how last year I was struggling so much finding a place where I could be me, when I could be comfortable with the person I’m constantly becoming. This year it’s a new set of worries, and I’m reminded yet again; once we were slaves in the land of Egypt, now we are free.

Same theme, same questions, different answers and so it goes.

In my worry about the physical preparation for Passover I’d forgotten about the spiritual preparation. That’s what I was thinking about last night as I searched my house for stray chometz, stray pieces of ego. Passover reminds us all that once we were slaves, once we did not control our own destiny. But now we are free, free to choose who we are. It is up to us to make our own decisions about who we are, what we stand for. Cleaning for Passover, putting thought into what we keep in our homes for this ancient and sacred holiday isn’t just a decision about physical matters, it’s about how we are internally, in the depths of our truest being.

Last year I went out in search of new land, this year I sorted out the space I was in, in hopes of making it fresh, of making it better, of making it more my own.

May we all be blessed, this year to face new challenges and remember that it is we who define who we are, through our actions.

Once we were slaves in the land of Egypt, now we are free.

L’Shalom