Letting Go for Passover
A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM OUR SPIRITUAL LEADER
Dear Wonderful Temple B'nai Emet Family,
As Passover approaches, I would like to take one more opportunity to remind us all that whatever we were able to do or not do to prepare for the holiday, our tradition gives us multiple ways to let go and enjoy ourselves. Some of us did a bunch to prepare. For others, a whole host of life circumstances may have made preparation too difficult, whether our physical health, our living situations, or sheer emotional overwhelm. And that's okay.
With that in mind, I strongly encourage everyone to engage in the home rituals that help us say goodbye to chametz (leavened gluten or oat products) no matter how much we have or have not done to clean or get dishes ready or the like.
It starts with the symbolic search for chametz tonight. Ideally, this is designed for when it is officially dark (7:41 pm or later), but really, whatever time works to help you let go on the eve before Passover should be your guide.
You can usually find this in a Haggadah, but the Rabbinical Assembly, which is the guiding authority for Conservative Judaism in America, has an easy-to-follow page for this:
Click here for a "Search for Chametz" Ritual Guide
This guide gives the ritual itself, as well as an understanding of the most traditional items to use for the search. (Don't worry if you don't have these items--it is perfectly okay to use whatever works, like a bag and a cell phone light!) The basic idea is that a small number (often 10, but it doesn't have to be) of bread crumbs or other chameitz are distributed to easily accessible places in the living space, so that the person conducting the search can find them fulfill the special blessing one recites at the beginning of the search.
I think it is very telling and helpful that our Sages have us make the blessing for this symbolic search, not for any real work cleaning our house. That makes it more possible for everyone. Of course, if you worked at cleaning, by all means you can and should view the blessing and search as a conclusion to your efforts. And if cleaning or other prep just wasn't in the cards, your care of our tradition and desire to do these rituals still entitles you to say the blessing with a full heart and with self-love for whatever else proved a challenge for you.
The ritual formula we say after the search is over (most importantly in a language we understand) is especially important and helpful. It helps us essentially let go of whatever leaven we didn't get to or figure out--we disown such unknown chameitz. And we are encouraged to burn the searched-for chameitz the following morning, saying a similar formula goodbye, this time to all chameitz, known or unknown, until Pesach/Passover is over. (You do not have to actually burn your leaven products--throwing them away is fine and may be necessary if you do have a safe way to burn them.)
These are beautiful rituals to help us move on from a place of preparation to the oncoming celebration. By mid-to-late morning, we look forward to the Seder table, to prayers of joy, to talk of freedom and hope, and to being in all of this together.
With love and hope,
Michael Feldman
PS: I plan to be in touch (much more briefly!) tomorrow afternoon with a short inspiration for our upcoming services, 10:00 am, Thursday morning. See the attached Passover Guide and the below recording of last Sunday's lesson (explained in the below email) for more.
Happy passover "almost"
We’re so happy to share the Jewish Federation of the Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys'
As the holiday approaches, we hope these ideas and resources help make your seder and the days of Passover feel even more meaningful, joyful, and connected.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
Passover thoughts
A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM OUR SPIRITUAL LEADER
Dear Temple B’nai Emet Family,
When you receive this, Passover, Pesach, is very likely to have just begun or is about to start. I strongly recommend you take another look at the Passover schedule I sent in last month’s Clarion and by email for a number of special opportunities to engage with our community and with tradition. Even though the official Q&A session is essentially done by the time you are reading these words, I remind you that I always welcome questions. Please don’t be a stranger in contacting myself or the TBE office.
(Also, please remember to save the date: Friday, May 22, 2026, we will be holding 9:30 am services for the Festival holiday of Shavuot, in addition to our regular Sabbath services. More details to come in next month’s article.)
As of the time I write this, much of the world, especially Israel and the United States, is still at war with Iran, and that very well may still be true by the time you receive this. Some of you by now have heard me talk about how our hopes and fears can, and often should, go beyond our differences: We all want a better, more peaceful world. Our hearts go out to innocent people that are threatened, injured, or killed, especially including our greater Jewish family (and literal personal families!) in Israel and elsewhere, but also including innocents the world over that may be harmed. And we still do not know what tomorrow will bring and can only guess as to what is the right path forward.
These are daunting thoughts, but there is comfort in being honest about what we do not understand. Jews have a lot of theories about what happens when we die, and our tradition teaches that there is so much more to come beyond life as we know it, but, ideally, we are also honest that we do not know what that “more to come” really is. And there are things in this life that defy our understanding. The Holocaust is less than a century old, and I am fairly certain that a century or two from now, we will still be trying to wrap our minds around how we suffered so much destruction and agony, as humans and specifically as Jews, and how God could allow a world in which it could happen. And the establishment of the State of Israel not long after, and the struggles and sacrifices that still involves, represent such a dramatic turn for our people exiled for millennia that I highly doubt any of us could truly comprehend what it has meant and continues to mean.
The calendar days to come give us moments to think about these things that are so obviously beyond our full understanding—but that nonetheless demand our attention. Like the other major Festival holidays, Passover’s last day in synagogue (Wednesday, April 8, 2026) features Yizkor, a time to remember close ones whose presence we can no longer experience in this world—even, perhaps especially, during our moments of joy. Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day (from sunset, Tuesday, April 13 through daylight of Wednesday, April 14, 2026) demands our recognition of the unthinkably tragic, perhaps prompting ourselves to ask what we can do for a better world. And Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day (from sunset, Monday, April 20, 2026 through daylight of Tuesday, April 21, 2026) and Yom HaAtzmaut, which immediately follows (from sunset April 21, 2026 through daylight of Wednesday, April 22, 2026) challenge us to contemplate the wonder and the conflicts of the modern State of Israel and its history, as well as our prayers that it serve a redemptive purpose for ourselves and for the world.
Throughout every moment of these times, I ask that we come together as much as we possibly can. Yes, I do mean that literally—as in, I want you to come to our synagogue. And I mean that in a larger sense as well—as in, I want us all to feel and act as though we are all in this together, because, truly, we are. Current events or the Hebrew calendar may ask us to think about death, our people’s struggles, or the larger purpose of the Jewish mission in the world. As we have these thoughts, we are entitled to our individual beliefs and opinions. At the same time, we are obligated to remember the humility and curiosity that our religion requires. We cannot solve the world’s problems, or even our own individual problems, alone. We need God, and we need each other.
I wish us all a Chag Sameach, a joyous Festival, throughout our Passovers, and a brighter future ahead.
With love and hope,
Michael Feldman
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