Pesach - not to be Pass-ed Over

If anyone had said 'Pesach' to me a few months ago, I think I would have said 'Bless You'. I had never heard of the word before. I didn't know that it meant Passover, and I never understood what Passover was all about in the first place.

I'm not sure that I really do now - as with everything I learn about Kabbalah, I seem to suffer from a combination of amnesia and deja vu, i.e. I know that I have forgotten this before.

In history, Passover is the story of the freedom of the Israelites from Egypt, after 400 years of brutal slavery under the cruel Pharoah. Along came this chap called Moses, and led them across the desert - oops, here's the Red Sea, never mind, we'll just part that and make our way to Mount Sinai. A great bible story.

But so what? That doesn't stick in my mind half as much as the joke about Jesus and Moses playing golf (Jesus insists on using a 7 iron to get his ball across the water, because Jack Nicklaus uses a 7 iron, Moses has to keep parting the water to get Jesus' ball back and eventually refuses and so Jesus steps out on to the water to find his own ball. The players behind them catch up, see Jesus on the water and said to Moses 'Who does he think he is, Jesus Christ?' Queue punchline from Moses: 'No, he is Jesus Christ, but he thinks he's Jack Nicklaus'.

But Kabbalistically speaking it applies to every one of us (the exodus of the Israelites, not Jesus playing golf). Or at least it makes a lot more sense if you consider Egypt to be the physical world, Pharoah to be our Ego (or negative traits that enslave us) and the Israelites to be our souls. So the idea of Pesach is to free yourself from your Ego - an opportunity to let your soul shine.

And as with every significant Kabbalistic holiday, there is preparation to be done. The preparation work started at the New Moon of Aries - the start of a powerful month. For the first twelve days of Aries (Nissan) the energy cycles through each astrological sign and theoretically your buttons are pushed in keeping with the challenges of that sign.

So, for instance, the third day was the day of Gemini, where (as I can confirm) it is hard to keep focus or to complete anything. Gemini's struggle to finish what they start, and so on that day it was important to follow through with whatever you planned to do to break that bit of Ego. The funny thing was that this day fell on Shabbat and the lack of focus throughout the morning was blatently obvious (and these are people who are aware of the energy of the day, and still it's a struggle, which I find hilarious - what hope for anyone else?!)

To alert us of the energy for the day ahead, there was a midnight conference call the night before, where portions of the Zohar were read and emphasis was made on what we needed to overcome. Then on the final day (yesterday) all of the energy of the signs were rolled in to one - emotional pandemonium, if you ask me.

Yesterday was the last ditch attempt to 'search for the Chametz' or in English 'write down everything that you still don't feel that you have changed or addressed' and ask for guidance to find the rest, and this morning was the process of 'Burning the Chametz', where you set alight to the piece of paper to remove it from the world, and yourself. Saves on buying a shredder (but just watch out for the curtains).

The effort that you put in to these tasks comes to Light at Pesach. If we have made maximum effort, we get brownie points in the form of internal change. If not, we get a little bit more stuck with our negative stuff.

But whatever changes we have made - good or bad - are concealed from us for the time being. Curious, huh? Why?

Pesach provides the opportunity to make a huge spiritual leap - we expose ourselves to such a volume of energy that we cannot possibly have earned it all. Imagine you are part of a raft building challenge as part of a team. There are going to be people who learn how to tie every rope, motivate and organise everyone else, learn how to effectively paddle at speed and overcome their fear of the water so that they can win the race. And there will be others who stand on the sidelines chatting to their mates, cause merry hell when they have to sit on the raft and paddle backwards when they should be paddling forwards.
But your team wins and you all get the praise.

Unfair, huh? But what you don't know is that over the next six weeks, your boss is going to set some challenges for you to see what you have learned. If you didn't learn how to tie the rope because you were too busy having a fag on the sidelines, you lose.

This six week period is called the Omer. It's button-pushing time again. More buttons to be pushed? *sigh* If you've done the work you can then earn the Light, it will be easier to overcome the challenges and your progress will be revealed. And if you haven't, well then you had better grin and bear it and wait for Rosh Hashannah.

So have I made enough effort over the past two weeks? Well, I have tried, but fear that I have not tried hard enough. I haven't managed to make significant changes in my lazy habits, although I have made a bit of a start on clearing out the house, I have dialled in to every midnight conference bar one, and I sought and burned the Chametz and I have a deeper understanding of why I am holding myself back on the job front.

But it's all just one cosmic guessing game to me. I guess only time will tell...