Burning Hametz, Valley2city

Every year, on the eve of Passover, the holiday of freedom, I slavishly plunge deep into the creases and crevices behind the sofa cushions, wrestling with their folds and wresting from them the crumbs, coins and other miniature lost contraband that got stashed away over the year in the couch-demon's hidden treasure troves.

Then I incessantly, obsessively break toothpick after toothpick trying to get the gunk out of some God-forsaken crevice on some device, appliance or piece of furniture that clearly is some engineer's craven design flaw that anyone who ever actually had to clean the d*#m thing would have realized. Then, just when I am ready to throw in the very well-used, thread-bare towel, certain there are more forbidden morsels lurking right beneath me, I am calmed by the ancient wisdom of our tradition.

There are three steps to ridding our homes of all the loose hametz we are forbidden to own, eat or see during the holiday of Passover. The first is bedikah, the search part of the mission. We are to pursue the promethean chore of spring-cleaning, turning the house inside-out, clearing out the winter blahs and encrusted dirt that built up over time, uprooting it so it can be discarded, tossed out, gone forever. The second is biur, the destroy part of the  mission. This found and collected hametz is then burned, literally incinerated. Its vaporous farewell ensures us we have done well. We relieved, re-invigorated and renewed.

But the third way is my favorite, the bittul, nullification. For all those overlooked and hard-to-reach pretzel pieces and potato chip crumbs,  for all those ossified and calcified bits of dough ground into the kitchen floor, for all those cocky bits of renegade hametz that try to undo our herculean efforts, we have a secret: we wave you out of existence. With but words, you are no more.

As the last wafts of smoke rise to the heavens, we conclude the cleansing of our homes with these words: "All the hametz still in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have removed it or not, is now nullified and ownerless. It is like the dust of the earth."

Judaism assures us that the perfection we pursue but almost never achieve is not there to taunt us but to inspire us. Not reaching it should not deter us or beat us down.

If we dive deep, wrestle hard, try and fail, try and advance, almost get there but not quite; after we have exhausted our methods, our imagination, ourselves, when we are all spent, it is then we can say,  this is the best I can do. And most often, it is good enough.

Have a wonderful Pesah.