Bready Or Not? It’s Passover!

WJC congregants discuss their bedikat chametz practices.

For seven days you are to eat matzot — on the first day remove the leaven from your houses. For whoever eats chametz [leaven] from the first to the seventh day is to be cut off from Isra’el.

—Shemot/Exodus 12:15

Bedikat chametz can be a challenging process for some, depending on how strict they are about it. Because bread is yeasted, it is fermented—the word chametz literally means “soured.” In one set of images I saw on a Passover humor page, someone had covered their house (and parts of their car too) with foil, in order to prevent chametz from getting out, perhaps. In her introduction to The New York Times Passover Cookbook, Joan Nathan says, “I start cleaning my house after Purim. I leave the kitchen for last, and let my twelve-year-old, David, check all boxed and canned goods to determine which are not kosher for Passover.” Purim happens to be 30 days away from Passover, so her cleaning takes a month, I suppose— she is a cookbook writer. No matter when you start your cleaning, the formal search for chametz is carried out on the night before Passover. After the last meal of chametz the next morning, the chametz is burned. (Not exactly child-friendly, but if you tell kids to leave so that they’ll be able to search for the afikoman after the Seder, they’ll probably buy in.) A good number of people symbolically “sell” their chametz to a non-Jew through a rabbi, in order to be able to feel that any remaining chametz is not theirs.

Rabbi Arnowitz’s parents, Janet and Alan Arnowitz, go to the Rabbi’s house for Passover. “I come a few days before to help Tami prepare, we have the Seder, and then I spend the rest of Passover at my daughter’s,” Janet explains. However, before they started going to Rabbi Arnowitz’s house, they would turn over all of their kitchenware and dishes to a special cabinet in their basement where they would store their Passover kitchen items—but Alan hated the job. That’s why when their kids were old enough to have families, they gave them all of the items and told them to do the work. Despite that, Janet and Alan still clean and sell their chametz, and only after that do they go to the Rabbi’s house. As a child, Janet remarks that her family was nonobservant. “We would have more of a festive meal but not even what I would call a Seder,” she adds. “I never went to a Seder until I met Alan’s family.” When Alan was a child, he had a Seder, but they didn’t change dishes. “My grandparents were still alive, so I went to their house, but it was boring because my grandfather did it all in Hebrew,” he says. When his father was a child, they would search for chametz. “A few days or a week after Passover they found a piece of chametz that was still there,” he laughs. That’s why they count to make sure they have all of the pieces. Many years later, when their children were little, they did a search—because it was fun for the kids—and they would put the chametz into a paper bag, and throw it out instead of burning it. Now, when they go to Rabbi Arnowitz’s house, each boy wants to make sure that they get ten pieces of chametz—Janet thinks that the Rabbi puts out ten. They put it into a paper bag and it is burned the next day. “They use feathers and flashlights now because candles are a little dangerous,” she notes. “I think it is a fun tradition—my kids always loved to do it.” After the chametz is back, her family always goes out for pizza.

Another WJC congregant, Debbie Katz, sells her chametz to the synagogue, but keeps it in her pantry. “I enjoy having grandchildren to pass down traditions and tell stories to at the Seder, and getting fun things like little plastic frogs for the young children,” she says. When she was growing up, she had Seders with a lot of people. Her family also emptied all the cabinets and put everything out on the terrace—it was screened in, therefore kept outside of their apartment. She waits until the last minute now to clean her house, but used to do it more in advance. She has another set of dishes, but lately she has been using a lot of paper and plastic since it is easier for her. “I’m older, so I take shortcuts,” she admits. She has a very small set of dishes, probably from the 1950s, that have been passed down in her family for generations. She fondly recalls eating on them as a child. She also likes pizza after the chametz makes its reappearance—plain cheese pizza is her preference.

Jennifer Hirschhorn, a third congregant, says, “My family would close off certain cabinets, change dishes, and sell our chametz to Beth El.” When she eats bread again, she likes French toast.

Finally, Michael Weintraub and his wife, Susan Brecher, change over all of their dishes, wash many of the things that they use during the year, and sell their chametz. They clean out all of the shelves they use for food, and use only kosher for Passover dishes and certain silverware. They then put a tag on the cabinet they use to store the regular dishes. “It’s not locked, but it seems like it is, so we don’t go in and use it,” they comment. Susan’s mother did the same as they do now, but Michael’s parents were somewhat less observant. “There was no preparation—it was just like the rest of the year,” he observes. “However, we went to our cousins’ house, and I’m proud of my parents for doing that. Then, after I married Susan, they started to be more involved.” Susan’s favorite thing to do for Passover is to cook. “About a week before starting, we move the chametz into the dining room so that the kitchen is clean and I can start cooking in it,” she explains. Her favorite dish to eat when she starts eating chametz again is pasta, and Michael’s is pizza. “It’s always welcoming—it feels like going back to normal,” he says.

As my title says, sometimes Passover hits you by surprise. But it’s important to remember that bedikat chametz doesn’t have to be so stressful—it just helps you prepare for the exciting holiday—and maybe you’ll be glad you’ve bread this article!