After his prayer, Rabbi Alexandri said the following:
May it be Your will, Lord our God,
that You station us in a lighted corner and not in a darkened corner,
and do not let our hearts become faint nor our eyes dim.
Some say that this was the prayer that Rav Hamnuna would recite, and that after Rabbi Alexandri prayed, he would say the following:
Master of the Universe, it is revealed and known before You that our will is to perform Your will, and what prevents us? On the one hand, the yeast in the dough, the evil inclination that is within every person; and the subjugation to the kingdoms on the other. May it be Your will that You will deliver us from their hands, of both the evil inclination and the foreign kingdoms, so that we may return to perform the edicts of Your will with a perfect heart.
Kad HaKemach, Passover 1:5 (By Rabbi Bachya, 1300's, Saragosa, Spain)
... And on this the Torah says (Exodus 13:7) "there will not be seen and there will not be found" - it will not be seen b'maaseh (in action) and will not be found b'machshava (in thought), rather one should anul it in his heart. The mitzvot have 3 categories: mitzvot of speech, of the heart and of action, as it is written (Deuteronomy 30:14) "in your mouth and in your heart to do it". Comes the Torah (instructing us) to anul it in the heart, corresponding to the mitzvot which are dependent on the heart. Comes the 'kabbalah' (instructing us) to eradicate it from the house or to burn it, corresponding to the mitzvot of action. And to say 'kol chamira', corresponding to mitzvot of speech. In this way the 3 categories of mitzvot are fulfilled through the prohibition of chametz, teaching you that the prohibition of chametz incorporates all the mitzvot... Just as the 'kabbalah' comes (instructing us) to eradicate chametz and (livdok) to check the house in nooks and in cracks, so too we are obligated to search and check the chambers of our inner being for bad (machshavas) intentions and bad (hirhurim) thoughts. Just as bedikat chametz (checking for chametz) is not valid by sunlight, nor by moonlight, nor by the light of a torch, but only by the light of a candle, so too the bedikah (checking) of the yetzer hara must be by the light of the neshama (soul) which is called 'ner' (candle), this is what is written (proverbs 20:27) "the candle of Hashem is the soul of man, which searches the chambers of one's inner being.
Mesillat Yesharim is an ethical (musar) text composed by the influential Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (1707–1746) in Amsterdam (1738 CE).
קודם התחלת המעשה הוא שלא יחמיץ האדם את המצוה.
Before beginning a deed: that one not allow a Mitzva to become delayed (lit. Chametz).
Likutei Moharan was composed in Bratslav, Ukraine (c.1802 - c.1808 CE) by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.
ד אֲבָל צָרִיךְ לְפַנּוֹת אֶת הַמֹּחִין מֵחָכְמוֹת חִיצוֹנִיּוֹת וּמִמַּחֲשָׁבוֹת זָרוֹת. מֵחָמֵץ, שֶׁלֹּא יַחְמִיץ אֶת חָכְמָתוֹ בְּחָכְמוֹת חִיצוֹנִיּוֹת וּבְתַאֲווֹת, כְּדֵי כְּשֶׁיּוֹצִיא אֶת הַקּוֹל וְיִפְגַּע בְּמֹחוֹ, יִתְעַבֵד מִמֶּנּוּ רַעַם; אֲבָל כְּשֶׁגַּלְגַּלְתָּא דְּמֹחָא אָטוּם בְּטֻמְאָה, כְּמוֹ שֶׁכָּתוּב (ויקרא יא): וְנִטְמֵתֶם בָּם; אֲזַי אֵין קוֹלוֹ נִשְׁמָע.
Kos Shel Eliyahu by Eliyahu Ben Harush, Morocco was first published in 1938 by the author’s grandson.
Kos Eliyahu on Pesach Haggadah, Magid, We Were Slaves in Egypt 2:1
Elohaynu misham – “Our God from there.” This is an allusion to the matzah. When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt they were not much better than the Egyptians; like them they worshipped false gods. When they were about to leave Egypt, they renewed their faith in one God and repented of their former ways. We find reference to this in the verse: “Draw out and take your lambs according to your families.” The sages interpret this to mean draw yourselves away from idolatry and bring obligatory lambs. It is known that chametz is a symbol for the evil of idolatry while matzah is a symbol of the aspect of holiness. Therefore when the Israelites ate matzah, they affirmed that their God, Elohaynu, never ceased to be their God and that they were rejecting idolatry, symbolized by chametz. That is why we eat only matzah on Passover – it is an affirmation of acceptance of God and rejection of idolatry.
Rabbi Dayna Ruttenberg (www.danyaruttenberg.net, March 15, 2013)
One of the mitzvot associated with Passover is that of removing chametz, leaven, from one’s domain. In contemporary practice, this involves not only getting rid of pasta and cookies from the cupboard, but also, for many, cleaning everything (most especially the kitchen) thoroughly, covering up countertops on which chametz has been prepared, taking out dishes on which chametz has never been eaten, and a lot of other things. It’s a rigorous, physically demanding process of cleaning, wiping, boiling, and sorting. But at the end of it, as Passover starts, there’s often a gorgeous feeling that one has purified, in a way, one’s physical surroundings.
These preparations for Passover can feel deeply spiritual in one way, but also invite us to ask whether we’re removing the spiritual chametz from our lives along with the physical stuff. A lot of traditional commentators describe chametz as fluffy, swollen (think of bread rising), and talk about spiritual chametz as the puffy, overextended parts of our ego; the way we try to posture and preen, to achieve renown rather than just existing as we are, being gentle and modest; a mere humble matzah, if you will.
It’s a lot harder to sweep out our illusions about ourselves, the ways in which we try to put ourselves first, the ways in which we hear others a little less well because we think of ourselves as more important, the ways in which we take shortcuts on our integrity and deepest values. There’s no cabinet in which we can lock away our pettienesses and our meannesses for a week.
Rather, we have to seek them out. Like the search for physical chametz that happens in the dark, with a candle, we need to be intentional in our attempts to collect all of the parts of who we’ve been that are not nourishing, that are dragging us down. We need to look for it, and we need to be willing to find it; to confront it, to face it, to name it, to take it from where it’s been hidden all this time. This work requires tremendous bravery.
And then, when we find it, we must burn it to give it up completely, to let it go, to transform ourselves by putting the worst of who we have been on the pyre.
We know, on some level, that like the cookie crumbs under the sofa, that some of it might come creeping back after Pesach is over. But it is the act of seeking it, naming it, and releasing it, to committing, year after year after year, to purifying the self and becoming the holiest version of who we are meant to be; it is the work of seeking out and releasing our internal leaven that is, in itself, an offering to God.