Passover can be a stressful holiday. Whether you are meticulously cleaning the house of hametz, crafting the best menu for seder, picking out a new haggadah, or planning travel to friends and family, Passover preparations are relentless. Even the first step, biur hametz, removing hametz, can be overwhelming.
But one Ḥasidic rebbe teaches us that this toil is exactly the point.
The Piaseczner Rebbe and the Preparation of a Mitzvah
In my final semester of rabbinical school, Rabbi Dr. Nehemia Polen taught us some of the Ḥasidic teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Piaseczner Rebbe. He is most famous for his later writings in the Warsaw ghetto, Aish Kodesh. But Rabbi Polen has urged us to not just think of him as a Holocaust theologian: the Piasetzner has some earlier gems.
In Derekh Hamelekh on Parashat Toldot, the Piaseczner Rebbe writes about how the preparation of a mitzvah is actually part of the mitzvah itself.
What Haman Got Right
He quotes the Talmud’s vision of Haman’s perspective on Jews.
In [Megillat] Esther, Haman says, “Nor do they keep the king’s laws” (Esther 3:8). They spend the entire year in idleness, as they are constantly saying: Shehi pehi, an acronym for: It is Shabbat today [Shabbat hayom]; it is Passover today [Pesaḥ hayom] (Megillah 13b).
Instead of booing Haman, the Piaseczner Rebbe argues with him. Shabbat is only one day a week and Passover is only one week of the year! How could Haman claim the Jews were idle all year? The Piaseczner Rebbe says that the “thorn in Haman’s eye” was all the preparation of a mitzvah. Biur hametz takes our time before Passover, and cooking for Shabbat takes up our weekdays.
The Piaseczner Rebbe concludes, “Well, I guess Haman is right! We do spend all year busy with the prep for Passover, and all week for the prep for Shabbat.”
But, unlike Haman, he views that as a good thing.
Every Step Is Part of the Ascent
The Piaseczner Rebbe teaches that taking small steps towards a mitzvah is necessary to fulfill it:
All mitzvot are lofty and it is impossible for Jews to fulfill them in one fell swoop. Only once one has made the necessary preparations can they approach and attempt to reach the mitzvah.
He offers a parable of a climber on a high mountain. Has the climber only “ascended” the mountain once they are at the top? No! Each and every step that they take is part of the ascent.
In other words, each dish you kasher, or piece of hametz that you donate, is part of biur hametz, removing the hametz. The preparation is the mitzvah itself unfolding.
And then he takes this idea one step further. He teaches that preparation doesn’t just count toward the mitzvah. God gave us mitzvot, he says, to tzaraf us, to test and refine us. The friction of the prep, everything that makes it difficult, is exactly what it’s for.
It’s easy to sink into the mundane and grow frustrated with Shabbat or Passover prep. But the mundanity of the prep is itself part of our ascent.
Biur Hametz and the Light of Liberation
Rav Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Palestine in the early 20th century, extends this idea. He says that the freedom of Passover, the holiday of liberation, only comes to us through biur hametz. He says that this is the
…excision of anything and everything that delays liberation from our midst. This is the “leaven in the dough” whose damage is particularly felt at the time when the light of geula, liberation, is shining upon us.
The removal of hametz is not just logistics; it’s bringing us directly into the freedom at the heart of the ḥag.
May we have the patience and imagination to find meaning in our housekeeping, both literal and spiritual.
