All That Rises Up Bitter

Sometime ago I read a blog post by Rachel Barenblat on her Velveteen Rabbi blog. It was based on Passover or Pesach as the Jewish Community calls it. I had copied and pasted a piece of that post into Word and printed it off. I read it again recently, and a day or so later the line "All the rises up bitter" floated into my head. 

For those of you who are wondering about the dandelion photograph, the Passover/Pesach Seder requires that those attending eat bitter herbs. That's about all I know about what is eaten at the Seder. Looking it up on Wikipedia, dandelion is apparently deemed to be one of the bitter herbs.

But her post is not really about what is eaten at Pesach. It seems to me to be as much about an internal cleansing that goes along with the cleansing of the house of all the is Hametz, or Chametz as it is apparently alternately spelled. Hametz is leaven and comes from a root word that means to sour or to ferment. This is the entire section written by Barenblat in this post: 

All the arises up bitter
All that rises up prideful 
All that rises up in old ways no longer fruitful
All Hametz still in my possession
but unknown to me
which I have not seen
nor disposed of
may it find common grave 
with the dust of the earth 
amen amen
selah...

I know how easy it is to let things sour or ferment inside me. I know that many of us are seeing much that is bitter rising up. Much that is prideful and much that is of the old ways/beliefs are getting in the way of building a new community. I think that one way we can help cleanse the Hametz out in the world is to cleanse ourselves of the bitter, the prideful and the old ways. I know that I'm not perfect at this. In fact, I had a bit of slip this morning by chastisingly responding to an email this morning from a group soliciting funds by lecturing them. Sigh. As well as the other day. Sigh. (It is so easy to let compassion and courtesy slip when writing an email or using social media.) But I do try, or at least I think I do.

I suppose noticing when I slip up is one way to work on letting all that is Hametz go. Speaking or writing in a compassionate, or at least courteous manner, when I want to speak out about something - especially where I hope to plant a seed so that someone begins to see things from a different perspective.

What ways do you cleanse yourself of Hametz?

If you want to read Barenblat's post, click here.

The first photograph is by Natalie Luchanko. The second on is by Elle Hughes. I found both on unsplash.com