Have you ever wondered where the term ‘spring cleaning’ comes from?

Some say that it comes from the Jewish tradition of cleaning our homes out just before Pesach (Passover). One of the  ways we prepare for this holiday is to go through our homes, cleaning them from top to bottom to ensure we get all  the hametz (leaven) out so that we can celebrate Pesach in our homes and with our families.

Now you might be saying, “leaven applies to yeast, right?” Yes, it does! But it’s not just the food in our cupboards containing yeast that we dispose of. Yeast is also in those little crumbs we leave behind all year long, you know, the  nes that fall behind appliances and into our furniture. For this reason, we must clean every nook and cranny out in our  homes to get every spec of yeast out.

This sounds like spring cleaning to me. Sometimes we miss some though. This is why, as we perform the Bedikat Hametz (searching for leaven), we also recite the following prayer after we have searched the house for any crumbs which might have been left behind,

“Any leaven that is in my possession, that I have not seen or not removed, shall be unclaimed and considered as the dust of the earth.”

Read the full article here: April ’23 Issue 20