Spring Cleaning for Chametz a
‘Labor of Love’
R ight about now, the backyards of some
Jewish households are becoming fi ve-star
restaurants for Philadelphia’s squirrels,
birds and deer.

Leavened cookies, cakes and bread buried deep
in the pantry are thrown to the wildlife, eliminat-
ing the risk of temptation for those observing the
upcoming holiday. As Passover approaches, one
man’s trash is an animal’s repast.

With the fi rst seder on the 15th of Nisan — or
April 15 — on the horizon, marking the fi rst day of
Passover, Jews are well into the process of purging
their chametz. While some opt to get creative, and
others keep to tradition when it comes to their
Passover spring cleaning, all observing the holiday
are looking to extract the spiritual benefi ts that
abstaining from leavened goods has to off er.

Particularly because avoiding chametz is more
than just resisting sandwiches for a week.

While Jews partake in the eating of matzah to
commemorate the speed at which our ancestors fl ed
Egypt — so fast that the bread they were baking in
preparation didn’t have time to rise — matzah is only
a small portion of the Passover dietary strictures.

According to Ko Kosher Service Rabbi Amiel
Novoseller, Jews are forbidden by Jewish law to eat
fi ve particular grains on the holiday — wheat, barley,
spelt, oats and rye — because of their ability to puff
up, or become “gebrokts,” when exposed to water.

26 APRIL 14, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
For some Orthodox Jews, this rules out the possi-
bility of eating matzah ball soup for the pre-brisket
appetizer during the seder.

And for Novoseller, keeping things non-gebrokts
means being extra cautious with the matzah and
grains he has in possession. He won’t fry a piece
of matzah in case a small part of it still contains a
grain that is holding water that could expand; he
argued that keeping wheat fl our for making matzah
during the holiday is still a no-go for most house-
holds, as that fl our could have absorbed moisture
during production, transit or in the home.

With such uncompromising halachot by which
to abide, cleaning one’s house of chametz means
getting rid of prohibited foods, but also sweeping,
vacuuming and isolating dishes and surfaces that
are not kosher for Passover because they have been
touched by chametz.

Chabad Rabbi Eli Gurevitz, director of the Rohr
Center for Jewish Life, approaches the task with
extra urgency. Th e Haverford-based house is shared
with dozens of Jewish students from Bryn Mawr,
Haverford and Swarthmore colleges, who attend
weekly Shabbat services there, even the week before
Passover, where carb-craving young adults count on
eating challah.

Th is year, Gurevitz — and other Orthodox Jews
who keep shomer Shabbat — are lucky: Passover
starts on a Saturday night, meaning they have a
whole week to get rid of any challah.

Still, it’s a six-day turnaround.

“We try to look at it as a labor of love because of
what comes aft er it, when there’s 100 people sitting
around the table at the seder,” Gurevitz said.

At this point, Gurevitz and his family have a
system down. Th ey vacuum and clean their carpets,
cover all surfaces of their kitchen with foil until it
“looks like a rocketship” and kosher their sinks with
hot water and a hot iron.

“You really only have to clean the areas where there’s
a probability or possibility of chametz,” he said.

But for all the cleaning and preparing to rid
their house of all their chametz, even a crumb, the
Gurevitz family still keep all their chametz in their
house, stowed away in a small room and explicitly
labeled, so no one accidentally opens the door and
snags a snack.

Having chametz in a pantry isn’t the same as
having a skeleton in the closet. It’s a practice many
Jews abide by over the holiday because of a halachic
technicality: One can physically have chametz in
their house, as long as they don’t legally own it.

In a twist of classic Jewish loopholes and clever
economics, some Jews will sell their chametz to a
trusted non-Jew, who legally owned the chametz for
the duration of the holiday. When Passover ends,
the gentile will then kindly sell the chametz back to
their original owners.

cottidie / iStock / Getty Images Plus
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER



Courtesy of Yochonon Goldman
Courtesy of Eli Gurevitz
Rabbi Eli Gurevitz (center) burns chametz at the Rohr Center for Jewish Life Chabad house in 2016.

A child at B’nai Abraham Chabad in Center City
makes matzah from scratch.

On Chabad.org, Jews interested in completing
sales can fi ll out an online form. As long as their
chametz are secured in an isolated part of their
house and they say the proper blessings, the mitz-
vah is essentially complete on their end.

In this process, rabbis oft en act as an agent or
power of attorney to oversee the sale. Center City
B’nai Abraham Chabad Rabbi Yochonon Goldman
oversees the sale of chametz for more than 100
Philadelphia households.

“Even though [chametz] may be physically in
your possession, you’re not the legal owner of it,”
Goldman said. “You’re leasing the area in your
home to a non-Jew for the duration of the holiday.”
Someone’s chametz can sell for a made-up or
symbolic number, but the non-Jew really does have
to give up some dough for the dough. However, this
individual has usually been entrusted with this task
for years, and generally receives a little extra during
the buy-back sale aft er the holiday as a thank-you.

For all Jews still wanting to ensure that nothing
has been overlooked, a prayer is said the night
before Passover to denounce ownership of all cha-
metz. “At that point, we will say a prayer that anything
that we didn’t sell or dispose of would be considered
‘hefk er’ or be considered nullifi ed, as if it’s the dust
of the earth,” Goldman said. “We don’t want to have
any ownership of that.”
Some Orthodox communities will have large
bonfi res to get rid of chametz and will say this
prayer aft erward, in case any chametz remains
unburned. Technically, a Jew could regain own-
ership of those chametz aft er the holiday, but it’s
frowned upon, rabbis said.

With the technicalities to consider and labor
of the holiday.

“Th ere are many young Jewish families who are
just like that,” du Plessis said. “Meaning that even
though they don’t feel there’s any sort of require-
ment to observe in a certain way, they still want
to feel very connected to their history, to their
ancestry.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Essen Bakery
needed to commit to pre-Passover cleaning, some
opt-out of the process, but not as a denouncement
of their Jewish values.

For Tova du Plessis, owner of East Passyunk
Jewish bakery Essen, keeping a kosher-for-Passover
commercial operation is near-impossible when try-
ing to also produce Easter hot cross buns orders for
a predominantly non-Jewish neighborhood.

Following kosher laws to a “T” is also just not
something du Plessis feels connects her with her
Judaism. “I’m not concerned that I won’t get into the gates
of heaven because I’m selling chametz on Passover,”
du Plessis said.

Du Plessis is hardly condemning the holiday,
however. She’s selling a host of “Passover-friendly”
bakes — almond amaretto cake, toff ee- and choco-
late-covered homemade matzah and coconut-lime
macaroons — that don’t use fl our or leavening.

Du Plessis still makes the bakery’s homemade
matzah in less than 18 minutes — the time it must
be created in, start to fi nish, to be deemed kosher
— even though the product itself is not made in a
kosher kitchen.

She sets aside an entire aft ernoon for this process,
creating the dough, letting it rest, docking it and
baking it quickly, similarly to the way her ancestors
made it.

“I can’t think of other food, where the signifi -
cance of the food is how it’s made. Everything that
makes matzah what it is, is how it’s made,” she said.

“Th e whole point is that it was made in a hurry.”
Th e matzah, as well as the other Passover bakes,
are products for people like her and her family:
proud and involved Jews who are less interested in
observance, but still want to keep to the meaning
Essen Bakery is off ering several “Passover-friendly”
bakes They are not kosher-for-Passover but don’t
contain fl our and are not leavened.

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