Articles > Ridding the Hametz Inside Ourselves

By Rabbi Mitch Smith

The Biblical commandment to partake of matzah during Passover, and the injunction against eating, or even possessing, hametz (leaven) are actually two distinct and separate mitzvot. While matzah (the bread of affliction, also being the bread of liberation) holds a special place in the Passover drama, it is the ridding of hametz which occupies us in the days proceeding the holiday, and offers a special message about the meaning of the day.

Philo, the Greek educated Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, Egypt 2000 years ago, saw hametz as embodying the sin of pride, because leavened bread is "puffed up". To remove hametz is to challenge and confront our own egos and sense of arrogance and self-importance. Pharaoh, for example, was so taken with his own power that it led to his intense stubbornness, and it was only when he was brought down to size and humbled via the Ten Plagues that he relented.

All of us become puffed up with excesses of arrogance, desires for self aggrandizement, or just counterproductive baggage that weighs us down and obstructs our potential liberation. All of us experience moments when we can elect either to hold on to this baggage - or let go.

After a disappointing 1999 season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, quarterback Trent Dilfer returned to Tampa a season later for the Super Bowl as quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens. Many local fans expected him to show up with a major chip on his shoulder, considering that he was practically driven out of town. It would have been understandable that he would feel he had something to prove to all the nay-sayers who had turned their backs on him. During the days leading up to the big game, NFL analyst and ex-player Phil Simms was quoted as saying: "I'm sure Trent will be emotional. I've talked to him a few times. Trent's doing it the right way…..enjoying what's going on rather than playing for vengeance."

Speaking during the post-game trophy presentation after Dilfer's Ravens won the contest, and upon being named Super Bowl MVP, Dilfer said, "I know what people are expecting me to say, but what I really want to say is that if you have to face adversity, this (victory) is what comes out the other end."

By finding the capacity to put away his need to get even, by ridding himself of the desire to prove anything at all, Dilfer found success. It's ironic that he was able to achieve a greater measure of respect by not letting his desire for that respect get in his way.

In his excellent book, How Good Do We Have to Be, Rabbi Harold Kushner reminds us that, like the rest of us, "athletes who obsess over their mistakes... do much worse than athletes who say to themselves, 'that wasn't very good; the next one will be better.'" Kushner relates the story of Donnie Moore, the Angels pitcher who gave up a home run that cost his team the game and a possible World Series berth. A few years later, Moore took his own life - his years of athletic success obliterated in his own mind by that one mistake.

Ridding ourselves of the burdens of the past is the best way to allow us to fully live in the present. Some scholars understand the injunction against the possession of hametz during Pesach as stemming from the time when our ancestors were mostly farmers, and the springtime barley harvest coincided with the Passover Festival. In order to harvest the barley and insure its proper storage, it was necessary to thoroughly clean the granaries and rid them of all residue of the previous year's crop. Failure to do so might have introduced fermentation into the new crop, as any remaining grains of barley from the previous year could contaminate the new harvest.

Similarly, when we retain negative thoughts and emotions or allow ourselves to be burdened by past events, we contaminate our present energies and abilities to perform and to live our best.

A college basketball coach shared with me how during his season his team struggled repeatedly with their ability to rebound from mistakes. In one game, they started off with great defensive play, rotating players with great efficiency, but when the offense went four minutes without scoring, they started to get into a rut, and soon their defensive effort went downhill as well. The dry spell on offense led to frustration, which in turn stymied the defensive effort. Not only in sport, but in any arena of life, when caught in a mental or spiritual rut, sticking to the thinking that got us there is not going to help us out.

The Spanish-Jewish philosopher Maimonides reminds us of this point in his comments regarding the act of God's hardening Pharaoh's heart (in not letting the Israelites go). Says Maimonides, it's not so much that God intervened at each step of the way, "deciding" to make Pharaoh stubborn. Rather, he suggests that God created human nature such that once Pharaoh set about in a certain direction, he mentally committed himself to that path (i.e. arrogantly entrenched in his position), and the hardening of his stance prevented him from altering his course of action.

Conversely, when we are able to let go of these burdens, we can rebound back and reclaim our ability to be at our best. When we can let go of those thoughts and worries which contaminate our outlook like last year's barley, we are able to give and live our best.

Dr. Thomas Perls, author of the book Living To Be 100, reports the research finding that those elderly who are effective in "letting go" thrive much better than those who insist on holding on to past hurts or the need to get even with others. It is only when we let go of our hametz that we are truly able to experience release from oppression and take strides toward real freedom. When we are able to shake off the burden of past mistakes, rid ourselves of the dead weight of old failures, and cast off the staleness of long-remembered hurts, then we can liberate ourselves from slavery to the past and summon the best of our abilities and energies to reap the fresh harvest of growth for the future.

With best wishes for a Happy Passover!