Religious Living  /  Observance

Chametz

Looking For Chametz in All the Right Places

 
Approximately six months after we have symbolically cast our sins away through the Tashlich ceremony on Rosh Hashanah, we are required to remove all chametz (leaven) from our homes (and by extension from our lives) as we prepare to eat the flat bread of an enslaved people. Besides bread and products made with flour, we are supposed to remove all cereals and grains: wheat, oats, rye, corn, and barley, and foodstuffs containing them, such as cornstarch or corn syrup. Rice, peas, peanuts, and beans are also proscribed for Ashkenazim, but not for Sephardic Jewry. All alcoholic beverages made from grain are included in this prohibition. Traditionally, those foods containing chametz were packed up and then sold to a non-Jew, with the formality of a bill of sale and the payment of money, or the room containing a significant amount of food and drink forbidden during Pesach would be leased to the non-Jew during the holiday. Although it was forbidden to sell chametz on the express condition that it would be sold back to the original owner, the transaction was and still is carried out with that idea in mind.  Unopened food containing chametz, particularly if  packaged or canned, could be donated to a local food pantry as an alternative practice.

On the night before Pesach (or on the Thursday night before, if it begins on Saturday evening) there is a final hunt throughout the house to get rid of any chametz that might remain. This is a chance for the whole family to participate in and share the tradition of this ritual, called b'dikat chametz, and it is customary for each person to hide a few pieces of bread around the house (adding up to ten, the number of people need for a minyan), although any number is sufficient. The Mishnah mandates that the search be made by the light of a candle. A feather, or in some households a branch from a lulav saved from Sukkot, is then used to brush the pieces of bread into a paper bag. Before the search a blessing is recited: "Blessed are you, Eternal our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has made us holy through your commandments and has commanded us concerning the removal of leaven".

Baruch atah Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam, a-sher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav, v'tzivanu al bee-oor chameytz.

After the symbolic chametz has been swept into the bag, the family members declare all unfound chametz ownerless (so that no one will be in possession of any product containing leaven accidentally) in a formal legal declaration originally recited in the Aramaic: "All leaven in my possession, that I have not seen or removed or that I do not know about, should be annulled and ownerless, like the dust of the earth."  In the morning before Pesach begins, the chametz collected the previous night is burned and the declaration nullifying all leaven is repeated. After 9:30 a.m. one is not supposed to eat chametz. One is also not supposed to eat matzah the day before Pesach in order not to dilute the significance of eating matzah at the Seder.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" Ezekiel 36:26

The removal of chametz can also be a metaphor for starting over, clearing out the starter dough in our own souls. Chametz is the leavening agent that causes bread to rise. It is what puffs us up, our ego, our vanity, enslaving with chains not any lighter because they are self-inflicted. According to Torah, Pharaoh "hardened his heart", making it heavy and obstinate. During Pesach we are commanded to eat a poor person's bread, the "bread of affliction", to imagine the plight of the oppressed; to move, as in our own story, from degradation to liberation. As we search for chametz in our homes, so must we search our own lives and deeds.
 
 

Shabbat
Chanukah
Counting the Omer
Elul
Havdalah
Jonah
Kiddush for the Eve of Yom Tov
Kohelet
Kol Nidre
On Death and Mourning
Pesach
Proverbs
Purim
Rosh Hashanah
Shavuot
Simchat Torah
Song of Songs
Sukkot
The Scroll of Ruth
Tisha B'av
Tu B'Shevat
Words of the Prophets
Yom Ha'Atzma'ut
Yom HaShoah
Yom Kippur
Kiddush