With the season of Spring comes new life and a welcome goodbye to winter.
While I love Spring, there is one ritual of the season I dread: spring cleaning.
It is time to air out the house, and clean out the junk drawer and closets. There is always a list of things to do. Some of these items I have just been putting off – but with the warm weather and longer days, there is no longer any excuse.
Some time ago, I found out there was a connection between spring cleaning and the Jewish Passover. Passover – or Pesach – is the observance of the night of the last of the 10 plagues against the Egyptians before the Hebrews gained their freedom. That night, the Hebrews were to sacrifice a lamb, take a hyssop branch and daub the blood on the doorpost. When the angel passed over the firstborn of the Hebrews were spared, the Egyptians were not as fortunate.
The other component of the first Passover was to make unleavened bread – matzah – for the journey. The people would have to leave in haste, and needed bread that could be baked quickly and contained no yeast, which takes time to rise and once used could cause it to spoil too soon. This bread of affliction was a reminder of the days of slavery and the quick departure from Egypt.
This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day shall be cut off from Israel. (Exodus 12:14-15, NRSV).
Observant Jews spend weeks before the first day of Passover house cleaning so all leaven is remove from the house. Every nook and cranny must be cleaned and all items with leavening (chametz) thrown out, given away, sold or burned.
Before Passover, one final search is done by the family to make sure all leaven is gone. Tradition has this done by candlelight with a feather to dust and remove any trace of leaven. Ten pieces of leaven bread is placed throughout the house to find. After all pieces are accounted for, a sentence is said: “Any chametz or leaven that is in my possession which I have not seen and have not removed and do not know about should be annulled and become ownerless like the dust of the earth.” The ten pieces are burned and the home is declared free from any ill thoughts about others.
Passover is more than about spring cleaning; it is a celebration of freedom and a story of salvation. The Passover story is in the second book of the Bible, the book of Exodus.
Passover begins on sundown Saturday and ends at sundown Sunday, April 4.
Happy Passover!
Eric Reece is the faith columnist for The Graham Star. He is the pastor of Robbinsville United Methodist Church. Email him at ereece@wnccumc.net.