Moving from Purim into Pesach 
	-- courtesy of Shalom Flank
-------------------------------------

The Talmud tells us that we should indeed be thinking about pesach
preparations, starting the moment that Purim is over (and we've recovered
from any hangovers...).  

In Pesachim 6a, we learn that we should inquire into the laws and ways of 
Pesach thirty days before the holiday.  But is there any connection between 
Purim and Pesach besides the calendar?  And what should we be doing during 
those 30 days (besides turning the kitchen and the rest of the house upside 
down, as if that weren't enough).

The gemara also asks why we don't recite Hallel, the psalms of praise, on
Purim, unlike any other holiday of thanksgiving or rejoicing, such as
Chanukah or Pesach.  After all, the gemara (Megillah 14a) says that on Pesach
we can celebrate having gone from servants of Pharaoh to servants of ha-Shem,
but on Purim, we begin and end as servants of Achashveirosh.

More generally, the story of Purim is the story of an unbroken cycle of
*non*-redemption.  Whatever Haman wanted to do to us, we do to him, from
Haman's bowing down in front of Mordechai on his horse, to hanging Haman
on the gallows he had built for Mordechai, to the slaughter of 75,810
Persians by the Jews (with the same letters of permission from the king).  

By contrast, Pesach is the story of movement toward redemption, from slavery
to revelation and the Promised Land (according the Michael Walzer, the
archetype of linear history).

So the 30 days between Purim and Pesach is the time when we reject the
impossibility of change, when we strive to break the cycle of non-redemption.  

We turn *life* as well as the kitchen upside down, looking for chametz.  And 
what is "life chametz"?

We can break the word chametz, chet mem tzadi, into the first two letters,
cham, and the last letter, tzadi.  Cham is the word for anger, rage, or
heat.  And tzadi is the number 90.  As it says in Psalm 90, u'va-cham-at'cha
nivhalnu, by Your rage are we terrified, for You have exposed our hidden
sins (shat avonoteinu l'negdecha).  

The process of searching out our "life chametz" is finding the anger, hatred, 
antagonism that keep us locked in cycles of non-redemption.  It is the process 
of uncovering our shortcomings, and feeling the righteous anger at what we 
have failed to do.  Just as Esther, the hidden one, is the hero of Purim, the 
transition to Pesach is the un-hiding of hametz, and finding ha-Shem under 
every crumb.

March 2002