Why I Stay Home for Pesach

I am staying home for Pesach. Since 1993, with only two exceptions, we have "made Pesach" at home. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss, "I will do Pesach in my house, I will make Pesach and not grouse. I'll only make it here not there, I will not make it anywhere (except my house.) Making Pesach at home began as a matter of necessity. In 1992, my husband and I moved to Cincinnati, OH where he became the Rabbi of a shul. The Rabbi doesn't leave for Pesach, so we needed to make Pesach ourselves. We were both trained: because I am a ba'alat teshuva, I started "making Pesach" in my house in 8th grade, and my husband was part of a well-oiled Pesach-making machine that was his mother's house in Minneapolis, MN. I was really excited to do it ourselves because I felt privileged to be able to make a kosher Pesach and to do it the way I had always dreamed of doing it. I surveyed my friends to find out what I needed, and my husband and I spent several Sundays buying EVERYTHING we needed to equip a house for Pesach. It was fun and I was so proud. I really felt the "cheirut", felt like I had finally "arrived" at where I had striven to be for many years. I felt blessed that we had the money to be able to purchase what we needed and that we had a lovely home to host sedarim. I was married to a learned man who could lead a seder, and we were finally able to do it our own way. People often look at preparing for Pesach and making sedarim as a huge (if not overwhelming) amount of work and something to be escaped, if at all possible. It IS a huge amount of work, but I feel that the preparation itself is what Pesach is all about. IMPORTANT NOTE: I am a firm adherent to the dictum "Dirt is not Chametz". I DON'T spring clean as I prepare for Pesach; I don't wash curtains or walls or the shelves of my linen closet. What I (and the rest of my family) do however, is try to go through all the places where chametz might be (which is pretty much everywhere in our house) and clean up. That sorting through and cleaning up process is, to me, the metaphor for ridding myself of chametz and preparing myself for Pesach. Chametz, according to the Gemara, represents pride, arrogance, and hubris. It is that which "puffs us up" and makes us feel that we are completely in charge of our lives, our destinies and our fates. That hubris is what pushes humility and a constant awareness of Hashem out of the way. Ridding ourselves of "chametz" should be a reminder to rid ourselves of arrogance and an excessive focus on materialism. Preparing for Pesach should be about reminding ourselves that our lives and everything we have are precious gifts that we are privileged to have and need to both enjoy and use in service of Hashem and the people who He created in His image. I feel (and this is my feeling, it is not in any way shape or form meant to be a prescription for what "should be") that this kind of cheirut is best felt after you have worked for it. When we come to the seder, we know that what we have before us is a product of our work and Hashem's brachot. I feel that this is also best felt when you are surrounded by those closest to you and those you love. I feel that cheirut is most keenly felt when there is still some avdut attached to it; as the Midrash teaches us, cheirut and charut (engraved, as the Torah was on the luchot) are the same letters and therefore, intertwined concepts. You need to have a sense of your own subservience to really appreciate your freedom. You need to have limits to bring out your best self. For me, staying home isn't only about money. For me, somehow, Pesach would seem incomplete if I were to be served food that I had no part in cooking, enjoyed cleanliness and hospitality that I had no part in preparing, and reveled in the chametz-free environment that I had no part in achieving. I think I would feel very lonely in a room with lots of people I didn't know and didn't have a relationship with and at a table that wasn't in my dining room that my husband and I decorated together with artwork that we had bought together. So I will stay home this Pesach. I wish everyone and their families and all those they love a wonderful, happy, healthy and kasher Chag wherever the are!

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