Mindfulness

Ritual hand-washing in preparation for the seder | urchatz | וּרְחַץ 

This is a moment to cleanse and refresh, so that we can begin the seder intentionally.

As you wash your hands, imagine washing away any distractions, leaving your mind clear to engage fully in tonight's ritual.

By Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder  alternadox.net

Later on we will do 'rachtzah'─the washing over the matzah. Now we are doing 'urchatz', which amounts to washing before eating a vegetable.  This is not something we do every day.

To explain, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, first chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, writes of dividing life into two categories: the goal, and everything else.  We set goals for ourselves and set out to reach them.  Everything we do that helps us reach that goal is worthwhile.  But how do we relate to all the other things we do?   This is an important question that addresses how we feel about the aspects of our lives that our not essential.  And this is one of the central points of the Seder.

What is the goal of the Seder?  The peak spiritual moment of the Seder is when we fully absorb the spiritual impact of the matzah when we eat it.  So why don't we cut to the chase?  Let's get that matzah inside of us as quickly as possible!  But the truth is, the Seder wants to help us experience every moment of our lives as an encounter with the Divine.  It demands that we let go of our usual distinctions -  important and unimportant, sacred and profane, good and bad, needs and wants.

Tonight, we are going to learn how to experience the Divine within all moments.  Not only prayers and mitzvot, but also eating and conversation.  Not only goals, but journeys.  Finally free to let go of the reins for a moment, we can celebrate every moment equally.  Not only will we recognize the holiness of the process, we will even sanctify ourselves toward this pursuit: urchatz.

R’ Kook deepens the concept for us: vegetables, in the Talmud, are thought to enhance hunger - 'appetizers'.  If eating is an unfortunate concession we make to our animal nature, then vegetables are antithetical to the goal of living life more spiritually. But if eating is another opportunity for encounter with the Divine - if pleasure is an encounter with the Divine ─ then the vegetable we are about to eat is a holy sacrament, drawing us in to a moment of Encounter.  So of course we should wash our hands to prepare ourselves.

Washing toward the matzah-goal and the vegetable-distractions represent two kinds of freedom: the first is freedom to live an intentional life.  We celebrate our right and capacity to point ourselves in a specific direction and actually follow through.  But there is another kind of freedom: freedom to let go, to know that wherever we go we will find Hashem and meaning and direction and connection. It is told that the Ba'al Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidut, when embarking on a journey, would have his coachman, Alexi, let go of the reins and sit backward, facing away from the horses. With the  freedom to let go of the reins, we allow our desires to guide us as much we allow the Torah to guide us.

Rebbe Natan of Brelsov writes that 'urchatz' is from the root-word in Aramaic that means 'trust'.   At this moment in the Seder, pay closer attention to your capacity to trust and let go.  The goal is to trust enough to sanctify aspects of yourself and the life you live that you never allowed yourself to see as holy. Can you trust the holiness of the night, the 'night of protection', to guard you from any negative impact of what's inside of you?  Do you  trust the people around this table, each of them looking at you tonight with holy Pesach-eyes, to be with you in your search for true freedom?

We have nothing to fear except holding back. We will never reach true freedom if we do not free our desires and appetites to be in service of the Divine.

As you wash, consider that you are preparing yourself for an encounter with something holy – your own desires!  Use the washing as an opportunity to shift your perspective on those desires.

We come together from our separate lives, each of us bringing our concerns, our preoccupations, our hopes, and our dreams. We are not yet fully present: The traffic, the last-minute cooking, the final details still cling to us. Our bodies hold the rush of the past few hours.

It is now time to let go of these pressures and really arrive at this seder. We do this by meditating together. Make yourself comfortable, you can close your eyes if you wish. Now take a few deep breaths, and as you exhale, let go of the tensions in your body. You’ll begin to quiet within.

When you’re ready, repeat silently to yourself: “Hineini,” or “Here I am.” Hineini is used in the Torah to signify being present in body, mind, and spirit. It means settling into where we are and simply being “here.”

If you prefer, you can visualize the word. Let the word become filled with your breath. Merge with it, so that you experience being fully present. Everything drops away, and you’re left in the unbounded state of here-ness. When a thought arises, just notice it and return to hineini again and again. Let yourself be held in the state of hineini.

Meditate in this way for several minutes, long enough to become more present. Slowly open your eyes, and look around the room at the people in your circle. Now, we begin our journey together.

Prepare sandwich of matza, maror, and charoset.

While we may understand that maturity means accepting that life is the integration of the bitter and the sweet, the sandwich also reminds us that we are live our lives "in-between". We hang in the balance, alive, but not immortal, sandwiched between a fragile, limited, animal self and our eternal Divine image.

The Pesach story begins in a broken world, amidst slavery and oppression. The sound of the breaking of the matza sends us into that fractured existence, only to become whole again when we find the broken half, the afikoman, at the end of the Seder.

This brokenness is not just a physical or political situation: It reminds us of all those hard, damaged places within ourselves. All those narrow places from which we want to break to free. In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim, reminding us of the word tzar, narrow. Thus, in Hassidic thought, Mitzrayim symbolizes the inner straits that trap our souls. Yet even here we can find a unique value, as the Hassidic saying teaches us: "There is nothing more whole – than a broken heart."

SHARE: Pass out a whole matza to every Seder participant, inviting them to take a moment to ponder this entrance into a broken world, before they each break the matza themselves.