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.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 27