It’s time to prepare for Passover. In a perfect world, you’re reading this right after Purim, when you have plenty of time to get ready for the holiday. In reality, it may be the week before Passover. No worries; your secret is safe with me.

Preparing for Passover does take time and effort, but it’s not just about scrubbing floors and getting rid of chametz. There is an internal change that happens during Passover. Knowing this, keeping this change in mind when getting ready for the holiday, makes the cleaning and cooking much more meaningful. 

Most of us know that Passover commemorates the Exodus from Egypt and the basic story: the Jewish people were slaves to Pharaoh for 400 years. Moses is found in the river by Pharaoh’s daughter and is raised as a prince. He is nursed by his own mother, who teaches him Jewish values as he grows up. G-d sees the suffering of the Jewish people and reveals Himself to Moses, charging him with leading the Jewish people out of Egypt. Pharaoh refuses and G-d brings plagues upon Egypt. When Pharaoh loses his son through the last plague, the smiting of the firstborn, he finally agrees to let the Jewish people go. They have to leave quickly and don’t have the time to let their dough rise into bread (chometz). So they put the dough on their backs and depart. The dough is baked into flat cakes along the way (matzah).

Chometz is leavened and inflated. It’s the bread of ego. Matzah is flat and simple. It’s the bread of humility. During Passover, we give up chametz and the inflated ego that it represents. Instead, we eat matzah and remember our ancestors, their slavery to a culture that tried to beat us down, and are reminded that the Jewish people are subservient only to G-d.

The Exodus may have happened many years ago, but it lives within every Jewish person and is a very modern story. Every one of us has our own personal “Egypt” that holds us back from being who we really are and living the life we want to live. Passover is all about liberation, not just from a physical place called “Egypt,” but from the inner thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that hold each of us back from creating a life that fits and realizing our fullest potential. We let go of our mental, physical, and spiritual clutter, part the sea of limitation, and arrive in a land flowing with clarity and purpose.

This year, when asking, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” ask yourself what will be different about yourself this year. What are you a slave to? What will you let go of to create your own Promised Land? Email me at GMG@LGOrganized.com and let me know.