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For many Jewish
women, Passover marks a time of slavery rather than liberation. Despite the egalitarian nature of many homes, the
jobs of cleaning the house, making the kitchen kosher for Passover (fit for use according to Jewish dietary or
ceremonial laws), removing all leavened products – down to the last crumb found in the corner of an upstairs
bedroom, and cooking for numerous seder (the ritual Passover meal) guests most often fall on the lady of the home.
Thus, on top of all their other daily household duties, childcare responsibilities and professional work outside
the home, they must take on the huge job of preparing for this yearly holiday that marks the Biblical story of the
Israelite's escape from Egyptian slavery. It's not surprising, therefore, that many a good Jewish woman has
complained that Passover preparations feel like living in Mitzraim, the Hebrew word for Egypt that means "narrow
place."
However, with a change in perspective these very same women can move out of Mitzraim and see themselves not as
slaves to the sponge, mop, vacuum, and stove but as priestess free to create sacred space, to preside over both
temple and altar, and to invoke the Divine Feminine Presence into their midst. Seen in this light, Passover becomes
an opportunity for women to exercise a religious leadership role and to transform what might be empty preparations
into meaning-full and spirit-full rituals and practices.
Preparing the home for Passover or for any other Jewish holiday represents a symbolic act that mimics the role of
the priests in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. If women can see their cleaning as a means by which they create
sacred space for the holiday, their family, their guests, and the Shechinah (the Divine Feminine Presence), they
will approach these duties with a different attitude completely. In fact, women serve as priestesses in the home at
all times but especially on holidays. Since the destruction of the Temple, the home has become a mikdash ma'at, a
small temple, and the dinner table a misbeach, or altar. Women are the kohanot, or priestess, that care take the
mikdash ma'at and create the stage, the bimah, on which ritual events occur in the home.
When it comes to cooking, on Passover – or anytime – women become not only kohanot but alchemists as well. To the
Kabbalists, or Jewish mystics, eating represents a clarification process in which our bodies extract the good from
the waste and integrate it into our system to create or primi, or inner light. The digested food becomes blood, the
medium through which ruach hachayim, the spirit of life or life force, passes. So, when Jewish women offer food of
any type – but especially a beautiful, thoughtfully and lovingly prepared meal – to their family and friends, they
help those individuals develop their inner light and bring more life spirit into their experience. They turn simple
food into light or life force.
Traditionally, Jewish women have blessed the food they prepare, making the meal a holy offering in and of itself.
Preparing the Passover meal and ritual foods with great intention and while blessing their culinary creations helps
women transform their Passover cooking into a spiritual practice.
Those women leading the actual seder should see this not just as another chore or job for which they must prepare
but as an opportunity to preside as a priestess over the ritual meal. By seeing themselves as a priestesses
creating and presiding over the sanctuary of their home, the altar of their table, and the rituals of the seder,
Jewish women have a wonderful opportunity to be ritual leaders in their homes. When they light the holiday candles
and say the corresponding blessing, they can remember that they also are invoking the Divine Feminine Presence, or
Shechinah. By approaching their "duties" in this way, Jewish women make Passover rituals and observances meaningful
and spiritual not only for themselves but for all those in attendance.
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