Dear all,
After our family boxed up the last of the chametz—the stuff we don’t eat on Passover—we turned down the lights, gave the kids flashlights, and began bedikat chametz, the search for the last crumbs.
Maya and Eli ran around the house, looking for the pieces Ron and I had strategically placed.
For them, it’s a game.
For me, it’s something more symbolic.
That stuff we don’t eat—at its core, it’s what makes dough rise. It’s what ferments. It’s the stuff that turns… the stuff that spoils.
And this time of year asks us to take that seriously—not just in our kitchens, but in our lives.
What is the stuff that causes us to spoil?
What is the stuff that makes us go sour, that keeps us stuck, that quietly eats away at who we want to be?
What stuff do you want to get rid of?
What’s standing between where you are at this moment in time and where you want to be?
This year, we are here.
Next year—once we clear out that stuff—may we be free.
With love and Shalom,
Rabbi Zachary R. Shapiro
