Well, it’s the first morning of Pesach and we’ve already had a chametz fail in the House of Jordan. R. came over to sign tax forms (blech, April 15), and I offered him breakfast. Eggs or cereal. A perfectly fine offer if it weren’t the first morning of Passover. He poured out cereal. I then freaked out and realized what I’d done.
Oops.
This year’s seder. Photo credit Christian Matheis. http://oughtornot.net
I’m starting to think that the annual Passoverification of one’s home isn’t as much about the ritual cleaning of the home, which strips it of any leavened product, as much as a way to force yourself from doing exactly what I just did: forgetting it was a special week of our year and offering chametz to the first unsuspecting victim. It forces you to start the week acknowledging it’s different and special.
In case you missed it in Sunday School or didn’t learn about this in high school or college, the story of the Exodus hits its climax when the Egyptian Pharaoh allows the Israelites to leave Egypt and head home. Of course, this happens with little warning and everyone must flee immediately. The story goes that they left so quickly that they did not even have time to let their bread rise before baking it. As such, Jews now eat matzah (unleavened bread) during Passover and strip their homes of chametz, or leavening.
By strip, I mean a top-to-bottom cleaning of the home to remove even a crumb of chametz. It’s kind of like spring cleaning and sets you up for the rest of the holiday cycle. In recent years, I’ve gotten kind of lazy about it. Passover hits right during crunch time during the school year, and frankly, I can’t often afford to give away (or G-d forbid throw out) all of the chametz in my home (This is a cool tradition btw. You’re supposed to get all the bread, flour, etc. out of the house and either burn it or donate it to a needy family. Nice!). Sometimes, I’m responsible enough to put it all in a bin and hide it for the week. But no, not now.
I found this awesome resource about the history of the cleaning out of the chametz that says even better what I’m feeling this rainy morning:
In cleaning for Passover, we are first and foremost fulfilling the mitzvah of biur chametz — getting rid of chametz. Biur chametz is actually quite an easy mitzvah in terms of physical exertion. The Torah says: “tashbisu se’or mibateichem” — make all your sour dough rest. The Torah commandment is that you can possess all the chametz you want, but in your mind it must be dust — ownerless and valueless.
Now obviously we are dealing with something subtle and vague. What goes on in your mind, no one knows except you and God. It’s quite easy to think you have considered everything “null and void,” when in truth you can’t wait for Passover to be over so you can partake of all those goodies!
So the Sages instituted a requirement to physically destroy chametz. This mitzvah is known as bedikat chametz. The Sages say it is not enough to emotionally write the chametz off as “dust”; you must actually search out any chametz you can find — and physically destroy it.
(from http://www.aish.com/h/pes/l/48970611.html. Ironically, aish means “bread” in Arabic…)
So I learned the hard way why the bedikat chametz is so important. I fully plan to get my tuchas in gear next year and start doing this correctly again. Lesson learned.
In close, may you have a blessed Passover. Chag samach, y’all.
Holly A. Jordan 