100% Humility

PESACH IS COMING!!

Yes, ‘tis the season to go crazy! Dishes are swapped, counters concealed. Books are dusted, cars are vacuumed. Kitchens are overturned, recipes are concocted. Bread, cookies, crackers, pretzels, pasta – banished!

And all this with a joyful whirlwind of activity, brewing from after Purim and reaching a maelstrom in the days before the first Seder.

And why again is this night different from all other nights? Because on this night we aren’t allowed to eat (or own, or have) Chametz. On Pesach, Chametz becomes a six-letter word: untouchable, uneatable, unmentionable!

And all that, for one simple, life-changing reason: because humility is life. And Matzah is humility, and Chametz is not.

When all is said and done, only the relationships in our lives are interesting. Everything else is unbearable. Our friends, our family, our G-d. Those get us up in the morning and keep us moving through the day. And those critical sources of lifeblood – our relationships – live and die on humility. With humility they flourish and bloom and blossom. Without humility they torture, wither and perish.

The encouragement and validation that we gain from good friends is transmitted only with humility. The honesty and unconditional love we have from family is conveyed only through humility. And the purpose, hope and joy we find in G-d can be found only with a humble heart.

Matzah is humble. Hot air blows straight through it and it doesn’t swell or rise a bit. It lies flat, modest, simple and unadorned. It doesn’t expand and inflate with Ego or Ego’s two horrible children, Anger and Conceit.

Chametz is the opposite. And for eight days a year, we go on a crazy, extreme campaign against it. Remembering that for some mystical reason (one that we slowly but surely appreciate as life goes on) G-d made sure we had Matzah and not Chametz when He was taking us from slavery to freedom, and from darkness to light.

Before the desert, before the manna, before the splitting sea, before the revelation, before the Ten Commandments – humility.

And thus the three Matzahs on the Seder Plate represent:

Humility, humility & humility. Now go take on the house.

Good Shabbos and Shabbat Shalom!