The laws of tzara’at take us deep within the world of purity and impurity that is central to  the book of Vayikra. In Parashat Metzora, we learn that impurity can lurk anywhere, even in the walls of one’s house. Normal human experiences such as childbirth or seminal emissions can bring about ritual impurity; no one can possibly live their lives without it.

Maimonides, the great medieval philosopher, wrote that the entire system of purity laws was constructed to ensure that we don’t just casually enter into the sacred space of the Temple. We must be cognizant of our bodies and our spiritual status, and exert the necessary effort to be ready to enter that space.

Purity and impurity are almost impossible to fully grasp in a world so far removed from the rituals of Temple service. What once would have been a major force controlling religious experiences is now a murky stretch of biblical chapters and volumes of rabbinic literature that describe a sensitivity to forces and conditions that we generally lack.

The paradigmatic example of a ritual that required a state of purity is the Passover sacrifice. There is even a second Passover described in the Torah that is designed for those who couldn’t participate the first time around. While we have no lived experience of the full purity and impurity system, we certainly know what it is to miss a celebration.

Everyone who celebrated a pandemic Passover remembers what it felt like to let go of so many of the communal pieces of that holiday. As in a world of impurity, contact held the risk of contagion, and the laws of the transmissibility of impurity sounded a little less foreign.

On this Shabbat Hagadol, many of us are well into our Passover preparations, maybe even deep-cleaning homes full not of tzara’at, but of leavened bread. Our Torah portion reminds us that sometimes physical conditions as well as spiritual ones leave us unprepared or unable to fully engage with holiday rituals. Passover, perhaps more than any other holiday, forces us to get ready.

What if, as Maimonides suggests, we felt that we were preparing ourselves to enter a sacred space? What if we thought of getting ready for our Seder nights not as Olympic feats of logistical accomplishments, but rather as a spiritual process, much like those described for the impure people in this week’s parashah?

We look forward, on Passover, to a redeemed world, one in which perhaps spiritual categories take on new meaning. May we celebrate next year in a redeemed, rebuilt Jerusalem!