Ah, warm temperatures and spring is in the air. It is refreshing (after a relatively warm winter) and I can open my windows again to enjoy the fresh air. Take a deep breath. Aviv, spring, the time of Hashem's world growing and blossoming. We have been inside and learning and working and now we can go outside and appreciate His creation.
The upside to this lovely weather is that I am inspired to start cleaning. As the world is renewing itself and waking up from its winter slumber, my house needs to be renewed, as well. All of this sentiment is a wonderful beginning to my Pesach cleaning. Yesterday, I finally went through the garage and swept and rearranged and cleaned and threw away trash. Neat, clean - just like doing mitzvos leads to doing more mitzvos, observing the results of your handiwork (or cleani-work) is absolutely the best impetus to want to continue your efforts. Collecting up the children and giving them a break for a while from their studies to help prepare the house for Pesach is not a bad idea and one that I have found to be very helpful.
Of course, in all of this smiley, happy, lovey-dovey conversation, we can't forget the mosquitoes. Where I live, because of the massive rains last year in the late summer and Hurricane Irene, there are large amounts of boggy areas that just won't dry up. Therefore, we have a terrible mosquito problem. I don't want to use sprays or any of that toxic stuff in my house or on my children, so we just have to try to ignore the troublers and the discomfort that they bring. If you wish to extend the moshol/analogy, there are always those things that would give us trouble and try to distract us from our observance of the mitzvos and service of Hashem. In this time of Pesach, we have so many profund and important issues to address and it is the time of our freedom, both physical and spiritual. We should not permit small irritations (you have yours, I have mine!) to distract and detract from our appreciation and enjoyment of this major chag of rejuvination and recreation. Staying focused on the ultimate goal of improving ourselves and bringing the Moshiach is difficult when we are worried about the details of cleaning out the chometz from our homes and lives, but in fact the cleaning process should be a catalyst to allowing us to serve Hashem even better. We should clean not just our homes and offices and cars, but also our neshamas and make sure that we are using this time of INspection as an equal time of INTROspection.
Have a great and meaningful Pesach! And don't get too bogged down in the details.
The upside to this lovely weather is that I am inspired to start cleaning. As the world is renewing itself and waking up from its winter slumber, my house needs to be renewed, as well. All of this sentiment is a wonderful beginning to my Pesach cleaning. Yesterday, I finally went through the garage and swept and rearranged and cleaned and threw away trash. Neat, clean - just like doing mitzvos leads to doing more mitzvos, observing the results of your handiwork (or cleani-work) is absolutely the best impetus to want to continue your efforts. Collecting up the children and giving them a break for a while from their studies to help prepare the house for Pesach is not a bad idea and one that I have found to be very helpful.
Of course, in all of this smiley, happy, lovey-dovey conversation, we can't forget the mosquitoes. Where I live, because of the massive rains last year in the late summer and Hurricane Irene, there are large amounts of boggy areas that just won't dry up. Therefore, we have a terrible mosquito problem. I don't want to use sprays or any of that toxic stuff in my house or on my children, so we just have to try to ignore the troublers and the discomfort that they bring. If you wish to extend the moshol/analogy, there are always those things that would give us trouble and try to distract us from our observance of the mitzvos and service of Hashem. In this time of Pesach, we have so many profund and important issues to address and it is the time of our freedom, both physical and spiritual. We should not permit small irritations (you have yours, I have mine!) to distract and detract from our appreciation and enjoyment of this major chag of rejuvination and recreation. Staying focused on the ultimate goal of improving ourselves and bringing the Moshiach is difficult when we are worried about the details of cleaning out the chometz from our homes and lives, but in fact the cleaning process should be a catalyst to allowing us to serve Hashem even better. We should clean not just our homes and offices and cars, but also our neshamas and make sure that we are using this time of INspection as an equal time of INTROspection.
Have a great and meaningful Pesach! And don't get too bogged down in the details.
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