Fresh Start

My love/hate relationship with my kitchen always rears its ugly head around Pesaḥ. First, the hate: both taking my kitchen apart and putting it back together right before and after the holiday. The seemingly incessant schlepping of dishes off of shelves and out of cabinets, plus having to figure out where to put it all to leave enough room for my Pesaḥ supplies only serves to highlight for me any dissatisfaction I have with my kitchen setup and my anxiety about preparing for Yom Tov. Dragging it all out again just over a week later, usually at some ungodly hour of the night after the conclusion of the holiday, is its own stressor, as I can never quite remember where everything goes, or where I stowed every item. Nothing ever fits exactly as it did before, and even when I remember to take pictures before unloading my cabinets the first time around, I still can’t get it to go back quite right.
Next, the love: when my cabinets are empty and wiped out, my countertops rid of any appliances or chazerai that seems to accumulate there of its own accord, I look at my empty kitchen and feel the promise of a new beginning. The same happens at the end of the holiday, after I’ve packed away all of my Pesaḥ supplies and am ready to reclaim my kitchen until next Passover. I appreciate the space I have, how I’m able to celebrate the holiday in line with my religious orientation, and how my kitchen can accommodate my family’s needs. And once I’ve successfully put everything back together, I even find appreciation for the slight differences in where everything lives in the cabinets. I always manage to come out of Pesaḥ with a little more space and slightly better organization than I went into it with (although I still can’t find that one dairy pasta pot…). 

Looking over Parashat HaShavua in these few short days between Pesaḥ and Shabbat, I didn’t expect to find a connection between my lingering engagement with all things Passover and the themes that run through our return to our weekly Torah reading cycle, particularly since Parashat Aḥarei Mot begins with the elaborate atonement ritual of the Kohen Gadol for a different holiday, Yom Kippur. And yet, it was my continued focus on the emotional impact of reassembling my kitchen that helped me find something to highlight for us this week. 

The details of the atonement ritual from the beginning of our parashah, Leviticus chapter 16, focus entirely on sacrifices. Aharon, the Kohen Gadol, offers several sacrifices throughout the ritual to atone for his sins, the sins of his household, and the sins of the entire community. There is fire, incense, and blood. And while these visceral rituals may no longer resonate with our approach to atonement, they are right in line with the rest of the book of Vayikra. But the entire ceremony is not merely about the sacrifices themselves. Aharon must also purify the sanctuary - the altar, the covering for the Ark, and the Tent of Meeting. In order to effect full atonement for himself, his household, and the entire community, Aharon must clean his kitchen, as it were. 

Like the intense clearing out that accompanies Pesaḥ, the goal of atonement is a clean slate, a fresh start. Especially given how we live and relate to our tradition today, largely in the realm of the cerebral and symbolic, it’s easy to keep our focus on these ideas in our minds, and pay less attention to the role of the physical spaces we inhabit. Both Pesaḥ and our parashah remind us that what’s around us matters. It both reflects our emotional state and impacts our spiritual well-being. 
May our post-Pesaḥ spaces bring us joy and peace this Shabbat.

Shabbat shalom!

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