One Passover custom I love is the search for chametz—leavened bread, cake, cookies, anything that has yeast and was allowed to rise. Traditionally, one takes a candle and a feather and searches deeply in drawers, cabinets and anywhere food is stored to sweep out even the tiniest crumbs. The other day Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie read from Treasures of the Heart, by one of my storytelling teachers, Diane Wolkstein. She wrote:

This intensive and thorough search is the culmination of an interior spring-cleaning. We look for and expel those inflated, puffed-up parts of ourselves that enslave us and take up space that might be made available for experiencing a new freedom.

The Hermit, with his lamp shining with the star of David feels right as a guide for this practice. Here is someone who holds a light that reflects his inner spiritual light—a light he has used to seek out his imperfections and failings as part of a spiritual healing.

This Passover, as we find ourselves inside due to the pandemic, we have the opportunity to seek inside, for what’s puffed up,, and what’s broken, as we prepare to do the Kabbalistic work of Tikkun HaNefesh, repair of the soul, in readiness for the revelation of Pentecost. Lets make the most of it.