During the weeks before Pesach this year, I've been trying to put more focussed attention on freedom and what it means to me in my personal life. I ask myself: In what ways am I free? How do I unintentionally constrict my freedom? What do I do with the freedom I have?

By coincidence (if you believe in that sort of thing), my amazing yoga teacher chose to talk last week in class about freedom. "Freedom," she said, "comes in two flavors: freedom from and freedom to." We experience "freedom from" when we remove ourselves from the things that hurt us or confine us. It's the kind of freedom that we celebrate when we see a dictator fall or when we decide to move beyond the limitations of our own past. "Freedom from" is liberation from confinement and contraction. 

"Freedom to," though, is a different sort of experience.

"Freedom to" is the experience of reaching beyond our present selves to expand the limits of our potential. We celebrate this freedom when we try new things, embrace new ideas, and attempt to do things we thought were impossible. Where "freedom from" is an act of self-preservation and self-affirmation, "freedom to" is an act of self-discovery and self-transformation. Exercising "freedom from" helps us to feel secure; exercising "freedom to" helps us to feel expansion and joy.

The entire discipline of yoga can be oversimplified as the practice of developing a sound foundation that is rooted in reality — an act of "freedom from" — and reaching from that foundation, to the extent our bodies will allow, to create a new reality — an act of "freedom to." Yoga poses are built on a secure connection to the ground that expands outward and upward into an expression of courage and joy.

Much the same thing, I believe, happens in Judaism. 

Living a life of Torah begins with the grounding principles of ethics, reverence, humility, and acceptance of the mitzvot. However, building this foundation alone is not enough. A life of Torah also means living with love, joy and courage to strive toward our greatest potential and possibility. Adhering to halakhah (Jewish law—however one may understand it) is only half the battle. The other half is to be a warrior in the cause of self-transformation and self-discovery. It is to become the champions of our own lives.

My tendency during Pesach is to focus on the first part. I get very caught up in the search for hametz (leavening), the rituals of the seder, and keeping the dietary restrictions of the holiday. This year, I want to let the second part receive the energy it deserves, too. I want to make Pesach a time of exercising my freedom to be more in touch with the needs of my family and the others I love, to try new ways of expressing myself creatively, to make new connections with people and with community. 

Those things, too, are part of what we celebrate when we identify with the liberation from Egypt. After all, it would not have been enough (dayeinu!) if the Israelites had only left the confinement of Egypt and not marched onward and upward toward the Land of Israel. The full celebration of z'man cheiruteinu is to break free of the places in our lives where we are stuck in narrowness, and then to discover the joy of becoming the people we are yet to be.

Chag sameach!

A mezuzah on the door. A set of silver Shabbat candlesticks on the table. A Torah commentary on the bookshelf. These are some of the objects you might see at my house that declare it to be a Jewish home, even to the casual observer. Each of these objects, too, suggests that there is something sacred about a Jewish home.

Of course, what really makes a Jewish home a sacred place is more than special objects. Real holiness, in Judaism, is not conveyed by holy relics. Jewish tradition has always been a bit shy about the idea that a physical object can be holy.  That would smack as a bit too idolatrous. The closest we come to declaring an object holy, perhaps, is a Torah scroll or the written name of God. Even then, the tradition acknowledges that such objects gain their holy status only from the intention of the people who create and use them, not because of an intrinsic closeness to God.

The holiness of a Jewish home really comes from the relationships and behaviors within the home. When couples treat each other with loving dignity and care, there is holiness in the home. When parents spend time with their children to teach them the essential values of compassion, integrity, justice, humility and reverence, there is holiness. When visitors are treated with hospitality and open-heartedness, then the home becomes a holy place in a way that is more meaningful than any mezuzah could convey.

This week's Torah portion, Metzora, deals with the strange phenomenon of a house that has contracted a disease. Many commentators puzzle over the possibility that a house could have tzara'at, the skin ailment that is usually (but wrongly) translated as leprosy. 

One commentator, Rabbi Yehudah Lieb Alter of Ger (known as the Sefat Emet), says that the idea that a Jewish home could contract the disease is an indication of just how holy a Jewish home can be. Tzara'at is understood in Jewish tradition as a disease of the soul; it is a physical manifestation of a moral or spiritual brokenness. Rabbi Lieb says that "Israel’s holiness is so great that they can also draw sanctity and purity into their homes." How else could a home contract a disease that afflicts holiness?

This week, as we prepare for the holiday of Pesach, our attention is drawn to the holiness of our physical homes as it is at no other time of the year. We begin the process of removing chametz (leavening) from our home to purify it for the coming holiday. There is a tendency to become a little obsessive about removing every crumb from every corner of the house.  (I speak from personal experience).  I want to suggest, though, that the obsession with the physical aspect of purifying our homes should not overshadow the more important task of revealing the sanctity of our homes.

In preparation for Pesach, you may wish to think about they ways that you make your home a sacred place with respect to the relationships and behaviors within it. Take time to repair any brokenness in the ways that members of your household treat each other. Make the process of searching for leavening also a process of searching for opportunities to renew the sanctity of loving relationships. In this way, we affirm the sanctity of our homes.