Passover is for Lovers
D'var
Torah: Vayikra
March 27, 2009
Passover is for lovers. The Song of Songs, the great love song of our Hebrew Bible is read during this upcoming festival. In the second chapter of this beautiful book known in Hebrew as Shir HaShirim we read "Arise my beloved, my fair one, and come away, for lo, the winter is past, flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing is here. The song of the dove is heard in our land.... Let us go down to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded. There will I give you my love." (chapter 7)
Matzah and love may not seem to go together like a horse and carriage but there is no question Passover is for lovers and so this pre-Passover piece is dedicated to love and how to be a better lover.
Before I officiate at a wedding, I meet with the couple more than once in my study. For years, I asked the couple to describe to me the gifts that their soon to be spouse brings to them and forms the basis of their love. A few years ago, I changed the question 180 degrees. I now ask each partner to describe to what gifts they bring and hope to continue to bring to their soon to be spouse. The shift in my question is a subtle expression of what I have come to learn is central to love in a relationship. I have written and spoken about this before. What is most important bears repetition.
I want my question to invite the future husband and wife to reflect on what they bring and give rather than what they get and hope to receive. A person who is totally in love based on the amazingly long list of items, physical, emotional, spiritual their partner brings to them is not so much filled with love as they are the fortunate recipients of a long list of goodies. Love does not come as a result of receiving. Love expresses a desire to give. The message, in fact, I want to convey is that love is a greater desire to give than a desire to receive in return. The oft expressed complaint in marriage "You don't ____________ enough for me" is not a way of saying "I love you, I honestly love you." Someone truly in love is more focused on what they bring and give. Of course, this is not such a simple formula. A spouse who receives little to nothing is going to be hard pressed to keep giving and loving and giving more but within normal, healthy parameters, loving involves more giving than it does receiving. And now to Passover in particular.
Yes, Passover is for lovers. Intruding on our ability to love more fully and to give more than we want in return is our being full of ourselves. When our relationship is about me and when it becomes more and more about what I want, we love less. This happens not only to the full fledged narcissist. It can and does happen to any of us. Passover is the time to clean out our inflated egos which get in the way of loving. Our inflated egos have been compared to inflated foods, foods that puff up or leaven which is the hametz we are to remove from our homes this time of year. Our tradition has us being so meticulous in how we clean our kitchens and rid them of any last vestiges of hametz to make our homes Kosher for Passover. As important is an internal cleansing we can do at this season and make our souls and psyches Kosher for Passover and ready to love as well. Get rid of our internal hametz, our inflated sense of selves which hungers to be filled with more and more of what you give to me and start over with a solid sense of self ready for true love during this spring season and give more than we would want to receive.
This Shabbat we begin the third book of the Torah Vayikra or Leviticus. Vayikra deals in great detail with the sacrifices that took place in the desert sanctuary and the Temple in Jerusalem. While animal sacrifice seems antiquated at best, the concept conveyed is as timely today as then. The offering of the sacrifice was an expression of the Israelite's love of G-d. The expression of that love was in giving something of value.
Yesterday was Rosh Hodesh Nisan, the beginning of the new month containing our Pesach Festival. The psalms of Hallel, psalms of thanksgiving and praise are recited each Rosh Hodesh. At our morning Minyan yesterday, I asked the Cantor if I could pinch hit and lead the Hallel section of the service as I had personal reason to offer words of thanksgiving and praise. After almost three months in the hospital and rehab, Janie came home yesterday. The words of the psalmist recited in Hallel have special meaning "This is the day
G-d has made, let us rejoice and celebrate on it."
There are less than ten cleaning days left before Pesach. Time to clean out the hametz from our homes, time to clean out the hametz from our souls. The word Kosher means fit. Our homes will be Kosher for Passover. Our souls will be fit to love even more.
Shabbat Shalom
