Lately I’ve been finding chametz everywhere.

Most people seem to think that because I’ve been living out of a backpack for so long, it surely should be easy to locate all my chametz and rid myself of it. Lucky girl, they think, her Pesach cleaning will only take a few minutes – mine will take a few days, or a few weeks!

But it’s not true.  You’d be amazed at how well you can hide little things in a backpack.  You’d be shocked at how much chametz I’ve actually come across.  Whether it’s an itty bitty candy bar I’d squirreled away for a special occasion then forgotten about (I do that more often than I should!) or a bar of handmade oatmeal soap, I am finding chametz in all sorts of crazy places.

For those of you who don’t know, “chametz” is what we would call “leavening” in English, although that doesn’t quite capture the whole gist of the word.  It encompasses everything that either is leavened (e.g., cookies), is used to leaven (e.g., yeast), or could become leavened (e.g., flour). Basically, everything that’s not matzah and comes from one of the 5 grains (wheat, oats, spelt, rye, and barley) is forbidden on Pesach (Passover).  We aren’t even allowed to own it.

Most people liken chametz to our egos.  Just as the grain in bread is “puffed up” with air, so too are we “puffed up” with our own sense of self, and self-importance.

Fitting, then, that just one week before Pesach our Torah portion describes the sacrifices.  Fitting because we notice something very interesting about them.  In almost all of them, chametz is forbidden.  Even when flour and oil are offered, they are fired so quickly that they pretty much turn instantly into matzah – no time to rise!

Of course, we should take this to mean that if we are coming to G-d to make an offering we should come without our egos.  We should approach G-d with complete humility. Nullification of the self allows room for G-d to enter.

But chametz is offered on two special occasions: the thanksgiving offering (after one’s life has been saved) and the Shavuot offering. The thanksgiving offering makes a lot of sense.  After all, we are not concerned about approaching G-d with our egos when He has just saved our lives! We are grateful to Him and we express that gratitude not just with the offering, but by sharing a 24-hour long meal with our family and friends, giving ample opportunities to talk all about the great thing G-d just did for us.  If you are going to G-d with gratitude, you are not going with ego.

There are many possible explanations for the Shavuot bread offering, but my feeling is that it is similar.  Having spent 49 days counting the omer and focusing on removing the egos from within us, we have finally prepared ourselves to approach G-d even with our leavening.  Our egos have been nullified and we can, on the holiday when we celebrate receiving the Torah, approach G-d as ourselves, in tact, without having to remove parts of ourselves.

But before we can get to the stage when we can offer up our whole selves, we have to nullify our egos.  That process starts with Pesach, when we spend 8 days foregoing our egos, giving up our “leavening” and just being (and eating) “matzah.”  And the start of that process is right now, when we begin cleaning our homes – and our lives – of chametz.

So it doesn’t matter how light you travel.  There is always some chametz hiding somewhere in that backpack of yours, and you may have to look in some unlikely places to find it.  Whether yours is hiding in your liquor cabinet or is in your can of spray deodorant, I guarantee you that there is chametz in your life.  And this is the time to be rid of it.

Good luck with all your Pesach cleaning – both physical and spiritual!

Riding on Camels through the desert in Israel..or perhaps sleeping on camels in the desert in Israel

It is very common for us to set out on a road trip and after driving for a bit, someone will recite Tefilat Haderech (the traveler’s prayer) and everyone else will respond ‘amen.’

When Rachel and I did a week-long camel riding trip in the desert in Rajasthan, we left the city on camel back and I guess that at some point the same thing would happen as if we were in a car; we would say Tefilat Haderech – only this time while on the back of a camel. I had the same situation when going for a four-day camel trek in Israel, though with the group I was part of, we mostly walked and did not ride the camels.

So can one say Tefilat Haderech while riding on a camel… or what about a horse or any other animal for that matter?

This is obviously an issue because people were traveling on animals before cars. According to halacha/Jewish law one should stop their animal if possible. This would apply to stopping a car as well. Stopping a ship or a plane may not be possible.

Some other issue to take into acount is that one should not say a bracha if there is an unpleasant smell. The question would be: if there is a bad smell coming from the camel (a combination of camel breath, camel farts, and wet camel hair generally constitutes a very bad smell!) one should probably get off the camel and walk a few feet away.

The first time I experienced this was in Los Angeles, California. I was spending Shabbat there and my friend took me to one of the Chabad houses. We got there fifteen minutes before Mincha and the Friday night service were to begin, and a good thing that was! Set up was a small Kiddush and there were some dozen men eating and drinking. This initially struck me as strange because my entire life I have been accustomed to there being a Kiddush after the services, not before.

The Shaliach/Rabbi explained it to me. “We’re not having a big meal because this would not be permitted. One should not eat late on a Friday afternoon, so not to spoil the appetite for the Friday night Shabbat meal. What we have is a small snack; some crackers, a few dips, a bit of cold cuts, and of course a few l’chaims on whisky and vodka. This way everyone can have a bit of a schmooze and catch up on the week’s happenings before the service begins and there is no pressure to talk during the service. Further, many people have had a long day at work and are tired and hungry and want to rush through the service and go home. But if we have a couple of l’chaims and a light snack, people then have the energy to sing and dance through the service.”

I really like this idea. At the moment I don’t have a synagogue of my own but if I did, maybe I’d implement it. I can’t see any halachic issue with it, provided one does not eat too much and ruin their appetite for the Friday night meal. But I think it’s nice to sit down with some friends and catch up on the week before the davening starts.

What are your thoughts on this? Do they do this in your shul? Do you like this idea? Yes or no? Please share a comment. Thanks.

This Shabbos is also Rosh Chodesh Nissan, which is pretty exciting.   Nissan is the month of miracles, which is clearly true because it’s the month when I was born (haha!).  It is kind of daunting to think that we are ushering in, officially, the month that claims Pesach (Passover) as its own.  That means Pesach really is just around the corner.

I always seem to leave Pesach cleaning for the last minute... This is a reminder of Pesach cleaning in bygone years... Eek! The nightmares!!!!

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t even started thinking about preparing for Pesach yet.  Of course, I have a good excuse – I still don’t know where I will be for Pesach this year.  Will we be in a hotel? A friend’s house? Or will we actually be moving into our own place in time for Pesach? There really is no way for me to tell.  In my world, Pesach, just two weeks away, seems to be way too far in advance to start planning for.

As much as I’ve travelled, my Pesach celebrations always seem to be focused on family and community.  No matter where I roam, I always seem to come back home.  My last two Pesachim were spent with Rabbi Ben’s family.  The previous few years were spent with my community in Miami or, before that, in Virginia.  Growing up, Pesach always meant a quick seder (relatively speaking!) with photocopied but beloved haggadot, matzah ball soup, a competitive hunt for the afikomen (I don’t think I ever found it, not once!), and Elijah’s cup, which was always miraculously empty by the end of the meal.

As I became more religious, I began to experience Pesach the orthodox way (and eventually even the Chassidic way), which meant that gone were our unorthodox photocopied haggadot (although I still have one I save), gone is the matzah ball soup (no more gebrockts for me), gone are the days when I was young enough to hunt for the afikomen, and nobody at the seders I attend would ever dare to sip from Elijah’s cup! It’s a big change, as have been many of the changes in my life.

Yet, no matter whose table I sit at as I partake of the Pesach meal, some things stay the same.  The five questions, for instance. Five? Yes, for me there are always five.  The four you know of, plus one extra one: “You’re a vegetarian. What are you going to do when Moshiach comes and you have to eat from the Pesach offering? Are you going to eat it? You know you have to, right?”

Appropriately, this week’s parsha deals pretty much exclusively with animal sacrifices.  This is the kind of parsha that requires me to answer again and again those questions about animal sacrifices that make me, to be honest, just a little bit squeamish.  But it’s good practice for me because it will invariably come up again in two weeks’ time at the Pesach seder.

There are a number of different ways of understanding animal sacrifice.  In my opinion, the most revealing hint to understanding them lies in one simple phrase: “When a person offers a sacrifice from within you…” “From within you,” meaning that the sacrifice should be something deep and tragic.  That animal is going up on the altar in your stead.  You should look at that animal and feel the tragedy of its death as if it were your own.

Back when animal sacrifice was practiced, this was easy enough.  Animals were extremely valuable at that time.  They were your source of food and livelihood.  Your bull or your ox would have pulled your plough or your cart. Your sheep gave you milk and wool, your goats gave you milk as well as meat.  To lose one of your animals was a major loss and you felt it hit you hard.  Not only on a material level, but because you raised your animals and cared for them, spending time with them every single day, often all day long.  You weren’t just losing a car, you were losing a friend.

The Chabad in Pune, India really values their two goats - they raised them from kids and they are the source of cholov yisroel milk for the family. These two guys even seem to think they're part of the family! So for the Chabad, losing one of these goats would be a REAL sacrifice - unlike for most of us, who would have to go out and buy a goat to sacrifice it.

For most people today, animal sacrifice just wouldn’t mean the same thing.  Maybe the Chabad rabbi in Pune, India, whose two goats give him cholov yisroel milk, would feel their loss.  But most of us would have to go out and buy an animal just to sacrifice it. There wouldn’t be the bond formed of raising it from a baby.  The only people who could possibly fathom the depth of loss of an animal today in the first world is the blind person imagining having to bring their guide dog to be slaughtered.

There are lots of commentaries, which I’ve previously addressed on the blog, that argue that in the times of Moshiach (the messiah), there will be no more animal sacrifices.  In fact, even the Rambam has stated that he believed that if Moshiach arrived in his times, there would at least be no individual sacrifices.  The truth is, if we look at the spirit of the sacrifices, we would be putting our iPhones on the altar instead of pigeons, our fancy computers in place of goats, and our expensive cars in place of bulls and oxen.

So to answer the question, would I eat from a sacrifice made in the Third Temple? I honestly couldn’t answer that.  We don’t know how things are going to change once Moshiach comes. Will there even be animal sacrifices?  If I had to eat an animal sacrifice at this moment, I would find it repugnant, but my mentality would probably be different given that we will all have ruach hakodesh, divine insight, once Moshiach comes.

So instead of thinking about what might come to be, or trying to imagine life once the Third Temple is given to us, we should focus on the meaning behind the sacrifices.  We were giving up something precious to us to atone for our own sins.  Maybe we can apply this in our own lives by giving up the latest high tech upgrade and instead donating our money to tzedaka – to atone for all those times we pause in our davening to look at our phones.  This is the best and most meaningful pre-Pesach preparation we can do.  We don’t just have to clean the “chometz” from our kitchens – we also have to clean it from our souls.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been working hard in editing a book that covers the first year of my travels around the world. It is an adventure book packed with stories about, mountain climbing, scuba diving, trekking but all with a Jewish twist. It’s roughly 150,000 words, a good sized book and will make an exciting read.

Will post more about this soon, please G-d.