It is Nisan, the beginning of Aviv - Spring, and my birthday month. (I was born on the second night of Pesach). I feel the weight of winter slowly lifting and the buoyancy that comes with tulips peaking through the earth. Pesach is almost here, and I know this because my colleagues are sharing where there are good deals on matzah.

Usually at this time of the year, I splurge and take my car to get it detailed and thoroughly cleaned, knowing how much my dad would have approved. “It is time to clean out the chametz,” I hear him say.

On the practical side of things, doing a deep clean of our kitchens, covering counters and changing over dishes is a big job. At the same time, we attend to the home of our bodies, hearts, minds and spirits, sweeping out that which is stale, out of date and keeping us in the constriction of Mitzrayim - the narrow place. The chametz might represent the puffed up nature of ego, and it might also represent habits of thought and behaviour that no longer serve. It strikes me that this process has some resonance with the work we do of teshuvah in the time of Rosh Hashanah. Nisan is the biblical new year and, as such, we have the opportunity to do some spiritual accounting, let go, make some real changes and welcome in renewal.

A poem By Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb

On the eve of the full moon

We search our houses by the light of a candle

For the last trace of winter

For the last crumbs grown stale

For the last darkness still in our hearts.

We light a candle and search in the listening silence

Search the high places and the low places

Inside you

Search the attic and the basement

The crevices and the crannies

The corners of unused rooms.

Look in your pockets

And the pockets of those around you

For the traces of Mitzrayim

When the looking is done we say:

All that rises up bitter

Al that rises up prideful

All that rises up in old ways no longer fruitful

All chametz still in my possession

But unknown to me

Which I have not seen

Nor disposed of

May it find common grave

With the dust of the earth

Amen amen

selah…….