Preparing for Passover

With Passover just a few hours away, I’m feeling a bit guilty for not doing more to prepare. In particular, I have not done (nor will I do) anything even resembling the traditional Passover cleaning, in which the home is purged of all chametz, the forbidden leavened products and grains.

Granted, cleaning is not my forte and the pre-Passover blitz is not a tradition in which I, the product of wholly secular Jews, grew up. In fact, I only learned of it my sophomore year of college, when I became a member of Kosher Co-op and discovered that by joining I’d committed myself not only to helping cook for a seder, but to a whirlwind week of labor, some of which involved a blowtorch.

Nonetheless, on the few occasions in which I’ve participated in Passover cleaning, it’s been satisfying in the way that any exhausting activity is satisfying once it’s finally completed. Plus, it’s obviously easier to abstain from bread, pasta and beer (the few things I usually do abstain from on Passover) when it’s not actually sitting in one’s cupboard!