I am prepared to perform the mitzvah of cleaning for Pesach; internally and externally, to clean away my fears, anger, sadness, worry, transgressions and faults. May it be Your will that all of my work should find favor in Your eyes and give nachat ruach to Hashem Yitborach.

Please Hashem, help me serve You in happiness, to burn away any distractions coming from the yetzer hara such as unhealthy desires, tension, anger, frustration and sadness that disconnect me from You. I pray and hope that through my cleaning here below of my home and possessions I shall prepare myself emotionally and spiritually for the upcoming Chag Pesach.

I therefore ask that I go about my Pesach preparations with emuna shleimah and trust that whatever I am able to do is exactly what You want me to complete– no more and no less. May I accept it all with love and inner calmness. I wish to clean my outer surroundings as well as my inner core of all chometz; from arrogance, anger and false sense of control. May I rectify all of the negativity that surfaces throughout my preparations and arrive to a place of wholeness.

May I live by the passuk, “Shiviti Hashem l’negdi tamid (Seeing Hashem in front of me always)” and know that everything that I see is from YOU and none other. I want to fulfill only Your will Hashem and react out of emuna shleimah and simcha only. I pray to identify with my inner core of greatness, my G-dly spark, that is where my infinite power lies, my point of connection to You. I can overcome all negative inclinations by remembering that Your love for me is eternal and You desire only my ultimate best.

Help me identify with my infinite value no matter how much I am able to do and complete. Help me recognize that true value comes from attaching myself toYou through every circumstance and challenge. I want to always attach myself to happiness, patience, unconditional love, a positive mindset and thinking, and emuna shleimah.

The purpose of these days of preparation - and of the entire Chag Pesach - is to free myself from the bondage of the yetzer hara so that I may be free to serve You on a soul level. An Eved Hashem is free from bodily restraints, impulses and negative middot. That is who I truly am and who I wish to uncover through my Pesach cleaning and preparations. 

These 19 short videos clips are excerpts from a series on theshmuz.com by Rabbi Ben Tzion Shafier called "The Fight - A Frank Strategy and Pan for Conquering Desire".

Gathering from the wisdom of chazal, this series presents a solid understanding of the mechanics of desire, and offers us a strategy and plan to winning The Fight of our Generation.

" When my wife had our first child, she went on the SIT Diet. Not everyone knows what this diet is, but basically it's quite simple. You take a large wedge of chocolate cake in this hand, you take a diet coke in the other hand, you say the words I'm so fat, I'm so fat, I'm so fat, you consume the entire wedge of chocolate cake, drink the diet coke, and that is the SIT Diet — Self-Inflicted Torture Diet.

Now, my wife is one of the sharpest people I know, and when she was doing this day after day at a certain point I said to her listen, this is not going anywhere. If you choose to be heavy I'm okay with that, if you choose to be thin I'm okay with that, but this self-inflicted torture doesn't go. Anyways, as they say, my words fell on deaf ears..."

Click the link above for the full story and video.

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