This Shabbat is Shabbat HaGadol, "The Great Shabbat" - the Shabbat that comes right before Pesach.

I read somewhere in rabbinical school that traditionally, this is the Shabbat where rabbis are supposed to give long and lengthy sermons on the importance of properly cleaning one's house for Pesach and getting rid of every crumb of bread and grains.

Don't worry, I'm not going to write about house cleaning. I'm less interested in the details of cleaning your kitchen and more interested in what this practice can teach us spiritually.

We know that this Passover will be different from previous Passover holidays so I’m going to ask us to think about ridding ourselves of spiritual chametz. First off, what is chametz? The word chametz comes from the Hebrew word chomotz to sour or ferment.

In our context, chametz means leavened bread or things made from the five grains mentioned in the Torah. From a spiritual perspective, @velveteenrabbi reminds us that chametz can also mean the old stuff we are holding on to and don't want to let go of, such as:

old patterns, old baggage, old hurts, or perhaps exaggerated ego and pride. Maybe it's the sourness of old anger and insults. That thing somebody said to us or did -- or that thing that we ourselves said or did and we have never been able to let go.

@RabbiArthur refers to this type of chametz as "the swollen sourness in our lives." Clearing out our internal chametz isn't easy. We might feel resistance to letting it go:

we don't want to forgive someone who's hurt us or let go of a painful story, or to believe that we ourselves can be forgiven for our past mistakes.

As we clean out our internal chametz, our job is to decide which of our old stories still works for us, and which have become the chametz that we need to shed in order to move toward freedom.

Just as we clean our home of leavened products, we must remove our sour spiritual chametz so that we have the ability during Passover to open up to those near to us and to appreciate the gifts we have.

This way we can truly understand the meaning of the matzah, the bread of affliction, which reminds us each year to flatten ourselves and our egos as we remove our shackles from slavery and celebrate our new freedom.

What's the chametz you're carrying that you need to release? What's the old stuff that you need to clear away so that you can enter Pesach with a heart that is open and whole?
love you all Shabbat Shalom, Chag Sameach and stay safe.