Passover Cleaning for the Soul: How Pesach Can Renew Your Marriage

“Passover Cleaning” has become a common expression used to describe creating perfect order from the ground up — not necessarily for Passover itself, but for organizing a home, a storage room, a balcony, and the like. Yet there is a far more important kind of Passover cleaning that not everyone thinks to do: an inner Passover seder, on the level of our family and marital life.

Let us see how we can use the themes of the holiday of Passover to awaken several key ideas that can lead us to the wonderful goal of true shalom bayit — marital harmony, which forms a strong foundation for raising children with grace and strength.

1. Renewal

We celebrate Passover in the spring, a season when nature renews itself. In the same way, Passover invites us to bring renewal into our relationship — to step out of the gray routine that quietly pulls us in, and into a space of setting new intentions that allow the relationship to blossom. This may include quality time together, heartfelt conversations, and shared experiences that reconnect and draw us closer.

2. Leaving Exile

Passover marks the Jewish people’s journey from slavery to freedom. In our relationships, this can symbolize leaving behind emotional blockages that have developed over time and express themselves as distance from our spouse. It is worthwhile to think — alone or together with our partner, about limiting patterns of thought, behavior, or interaction, and how we might open new channels of awareness and emotional openness.

A good starting point is to identify a negative feeling we hold toward our spouse and explore where it comes from, when it began, what sustains it, and what might help change it. From there, we can consider how to address it — sometimes with the guidance of a professional.

3. From Chametz to Matzah

Matzah is a symbol of humility, while chametz, which swells and rises, represents ego and pride. Many conflicts between spouses grow out of feelings such as “I deserve more” or “I’m not getting what I’m owed.” Humility creates fertile ground for appreciating what is done for us, and it naturally encourages our partner to give even more. When spouses get used to giving to one another, there is no longer a need to “take what I deserve,” because each partner fills what the other is missing.

There is no doubt that practicing these principles — even partially, can lead to genuine renewal in a relationship and help us reach places we may never have thought possible.

Wishing you a kosher and joyful Passover!

Rabbi Eliyahu Nakash is a couples therapist and psychotherapist, and chairman of the “Shalom Bayit” organization.