Jewish Holiday, Passover
Cleaning Your Mind: A Pesach (Passover) Resource
By Shaina Abrams-Kornblum, Eastern Community Manager and Jonah Rothstein, Jewish Education Retreats Manager
As our friends of Jewbelong write, “Passover is a big food holiday, with many traditional foods and one big ‘don’t.’ The don’t is bread or any leavened food.” This means that a lot of Jews clean their houses thoroughly to eliminate any trace of chametz, foods that are made with dough that rises, or leavens.
This Passover we want to challenge you to not only think about cleaning the chametz from your homes, but also from your minds. While we all cope with the new realities of today’s world, we wanted to provide you with some ideas to look at Passover cleaning in new ways and to inspire your communities to do so, too. We hope that these programming ideas help you to prepare for Passover with intention and excitement!
Program Idea 1- Setting the Intention
For this program you may only need a 20-30 minute Zoom call. This would be a great program to offer as a lunch and learn or a short reprieve for those community members looking for a way to break up their day a little. Before 
anyone starts cleaning for Passover, encourage your community to start by setting their intentions. Use the following quote to begin your discussion.
The book A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind will change your perspective on how, but mostly why, to clean your house. In this book, Japanese Buddhist monk Shoukei Matsumoto explains:
“Japanese people have always regarded cleaning as more than a common chore. It’s normal here for elementary and junior high school students to clean their classrooms together; although I heard that this isn’t done in schools abroad.(…) Cleaning is carried out not because there is dirt, but because it’s an ascetic practice to cultivate the mind.” (p.3)
Explore the text above and dive into the following questions:
gunk and crumbs. We can do the same thing with the homes called our bodies, where we store a lot of aches, pains, annoyances, disturbances, stresses, maladaptive habits, etc.”
Use this resource as a word-for-word guide to help you lead your own guided meditation. The meditation will take you through 4 rounds of “cleaning” that symbolically represent the way you would traditionally clean for Passover in your home.
The Hebrew word seder means order; the Passover seder is a structured event. In creating a virtual gathering space for Passover, think about what you have control over that can elevate this collective experience.
Start by sharing this quote by Abraham Joshua Heschel:
“We are closer to G-d when we are asking questions than when we think we have answers.”
Ask your community members to bring questions to the Seder. Here are a few to get you started:
Create a music playlist for you community members to use while they clean. Though you will clean by yourself or with your roommates, you can make this a collaborative event by engaging in a post cleaning discussion and celebration afterwards to share what you gained from the experience.
Here are some discussion questions to ask your community:
anyone starts cleaning for Passover, encourage your community to start by setting their intentions. Use the following quote to begin your discussion.
The book A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind will change your perspective on how, but mostly why, to clean your house. In this book, Japanese Buddhist monk Shoukei Matsumoto explains:
“Japanese people have always regarded cleaning as more than a common chore. It’s normal here for elementary and junior high school students to clean their classrooms together; although I heard that this isn’t done in schools abroad.(…) Cleaning is carried out not because there is dirt, but because it’s an ascetic practice to cultivate the mind.” (p.3)
Explore the text above and dive into the following questions:
- What will you be cleaning for Passover?
- Why will you be cleaning for Passover?
- Does cleaning your space free you to be able to focus your attention inwards?
- What would Marie Kondo think of the Jewish tradition of Passover cleaning?
- Ask participants to share items that are meaningful to them but are not always on display. What are these objects? How will these items help inspire you this Passover?
gunk and crumbs. We can do the same thing with the homes called our bodies, where we store a lot of aches, pains, annoyances, disturbances, stresses, maladaptive habits, etc.”
Use this resource as a word-for-word guide to help you lead your own guided meditation. The meditation will take you through 4 rounds of “cleaning” that symbolically represent the way you would traditionally clean for Passover in your home.
- Round 1 – Physical body scan – broom
- Round 2 – Mind/Thoughts – dust rag
- Round 3 – Emotions – water
- Round 4 – Spirit/ Essence – feather
The Hebrew word seder means order; the Passover seder is a structured event. In creating a virtual gathering space for Passover, think about what you have control over that can elevate this collective experience.
Start by sharing this quote by Abraham Joshua Heschel:
“We are closer to G-d when we are asking questions than when we think we have answers.”
Ask your community members to bring questions to the Seder. Here are a few to get you started:
- How do we acknowledge that this Passover is different than all other Passovers?
- How do we make space for hearing people’s thoughts and feelings without it taking up the entire gathering?
- How do we make time for meaning in the midst of a crisis?
- How can we use Passover and other Jewish traditions to anchor us in an uncertain world?
- Invite your community to think of adding something special to the seder plate to represent all of the Jews in the world who are not able to be with their community. Everyone can bring something different that they already have on hand.
- Ask your community to bring a short text, poem, or quote to the Seder to share
Create a music playlist for you community members to use while they clean. Though you will clean by yourself or with your roommates, you can make this a collaborative event by engaging in a post cleaning discussion and celebration afterwards to share what you gained from the experience.
Here are some discussion questions to ask your community:
- What experiences stand out to you about your experience of cleaning for Passover?
- How did the process of searching for chametz or cleaning impact your experience of the holiday.
- What associations do you have with cleaning for Passover? Or is this something completely new for you?
- How do you think the process of searching for chametz or cleaning impacted your spiritual preparation for Passover.