Well, as by now you must all know, Pesach is upon us. Mind you, there's still plenty of time to make yourself crazy! But the bulk of the planning, at least, is done...and now all that awaits is the implementation of said plan. Good luck! If I wasn't planning to be up to my knees in dishes in my own kitchen, I'd be right behind you helping out!

I actually want to share a thought with you that came to be earlier today. As I'm sure have many of you, Joan and I have worked out a system for getting ready for the holiday. As of last night, the entire kitchen was empty: of food, of dishes, of pots and pans, of silverware ... of more or less everything not nailed down. Then, this morning, a whole crew of cleaning people arrived to do their part: washing down the shelves, cleaning the oven and the stove top, relining everything with fresh shelf paper, cleaning the microwave ... all that stuff! Now, this afternoon, I will kasher what can be kashered, store away the rest, then bring up the Pesach dishes and pots and put them in place. When she gets back later this afternoon, Joan can begin cooking in earnest. I'm sure you all have similar plans of attack worked out!

Looking at all those empty cupboards is very evocative for me. It's not exactly like moving in to a new home, but there's a feeling of newness, of starting over, of the slate being clean, of that moment when the curtain comes up and the audience sees the stage and the actors and actresses on the stage...but before any of them actually says or does anything. It's a feeling of possibility and, even, of adventure.

Joan and I have moved around a lot since we got married. Our current house, for example, is the eighth home we've lived in. Each time, each move has brought with it new things to do, new people to meet, new adventures to undertake, new paths to walk down. I hate moving, mostly. But I've always liked the feeling of new things, of clean cupboards, of limitless possibilities. And I have a bit of that every year at Pesach when the kitchen, briefly, returns to its pristine state, when there's not a crumb of anything anywhere, when the clock stops for a bit and gives us the chance to reset it, and start over.

This Pesach, I wish for you all that sense of the future being a blank slate waiting for you to write a word on it. It's easy to feel mired in our own lives, weighed down by precedents we ourselves set, obliged to live up to models that no one actually imposed on us, but that we ourselves developed and imposed on ourselves. The older you get, the simpler it is to live merely by mimicking yourself and walking along paths you've previously trod. But it doesn't have to be that way. All it takes, really, is a few minutes in a clean kitchen...before the cooking starts, before the new pots and pans find their places, before anything really happens...to remember that, in the end, you don't have to move to a new address to invent a new path, to find new space, to move forward in the direction you yourself have always wanted to move in, but have never quite found it possibly actually to pursue.

I wish that sense of limitless possibility for all of you...and I wish it for myself too! I wish you all a peaceful shabbos, and a very satisfying, happy Pesach. May God grant us all the freedom to become the men and women we wish to be!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Martin S. Cohen