Observances

Observances

Removal and sale of chametz

In accordance with the mitzvah of not eating or owning leavened products during Passover, religious Jewish families typically spend the weeks before the holiday in a flurry of housecleaning. The purpose is to remove every morsel of fermented grain products (called chametz) from all the cupboards and corners in the home. The search for chametz is often a thorough one, as children's rooms and kitchens are cleaned from top to bottom and forgotten packages or pieces of cookies or crackers are uncovered under beds and inside closets. Although many ensure that not even a crumb of chametz remains, the Halakha only requires the elimination of olive-sized quantities of leavening from one's possession.

Meanwhile, the family attempts to consume or dispose of all edible chametz products (like bread, pasta, cookies, soup mixes, and even non-kosher-for-Passover matzo—which, being designed for year-round use, is allowed to rise for more than 18 minutes before baking) so as to have nothing left by the morning before the holiday begins.

Chametz that has a high monetary value (such as liquor which is made from wheat) may be sold rather than discarded. This sale of chametz is conducted via the community rabbi, who becomes the "agent" for all the community's Jews through a halakhic procedure called a kinyan (acquisition). As the agent, the rabbi will sell all the chametz to a non-Jew for a price to be negotiated after the holiday. In the meantime, the non-Jew is asked to put down a small down payment (e.g. $1.00), with the remainder due after Passover. As soon as the holiday ends, the rabbi will contact the non-Jew, to buy the community's chametz back from him. In practice, it is almost always bought back, with a small profit to the non-Jew[3].

This sale is considered completely binding according to Halakha, to the point that each householder must put aside all the chametz he is selling into a box or cupboard and assume that at any time during the holiday, the non-Jewish buyer may come to take or partake of his share. Similarly, Jewish store owners who stock leavened food products sell everything in their storeroom to a non-Jew with full knowledge that the new "owner" can claim his property. In the Eastern European shtetls, the Jews, who were often tavern keepers, would sell their chametz in this way to neighboring non-Jews, and risk having the non-Jews enter their cellars to drink all the liquor during the holiday—which they often did.