LEAVEN BREAD ALONE
According to Exodus 12:19, no leaven should be found or seen in Jews' homes during the week of Passover, which this year will be from sunset April 19 to sunset April 27. That includes foods like bread and anything else with yeast.
As one way of fulfilling that commandment but not having to get rid of leavened food with a long shelf life, many observant Jews will sign a contract authorizing someone to sell their chametz, the Hebrew word for leavened bread, to a gentile for the duration of Passover.
They also will lock both chametz and utensils away so it can't be found or seen. Any leavened food that is found must be covered and burned, said Rabbi Eli Langsam of Lubavitch Chabad of Peoria, Ill.
Jews also are not to eat any leavened food, or chametz, for the week. Instead, they are commanded to eat matzah, unleavened bread.
That gentile who legally owns the chametz, can, at least in theory, walk into the house of the Jew he has bought it from and take it.
"It's his," said Rabbi Moshe Kushner, executive director of the Chicago Rabbinical Council. "He is buying thousands and thousands of homes' worth, possibly, of chametz, and it belongs to him. It's a legal deal. I could not prosecute him if he went into my house and took the chametz.
"After Passover, we go to him and say, 'We want to buy it back.'"
Peoria's Congregation Agudas Achim provides members with a contract to fill out authorizing a CRC rabbi "to sell all chametz ... and all products containing even the smallest percentage of chametz ... and to lease all places where the aforementioned items may be found."
A CRC rabbi then sells the chametz to the Gentile janitor of Congregation K.I.N.S. (Knesset Israel Nusach Sfard) in Chicago's West Rogers Park neighborhood. The money involved in such transactions usually ends up being a donation to a synagogue or other Jewish organization.
Kushner said the practice probably "goes back to Talmudic times."
"Today, when we have cans, we have shelf life, or I go out of town for Passover, so I have leftover stuff in my house," Kushner said. "I try to get rid of what I call 'total chametz' - cereals or bread I don't keep."
Langsam also offers on his Web site, www.chabadpeoria.com, and in a booklet sent out to supporters a contract to sell their chametz. Langsam said he considers "my whole house" to be sold.
"My property gets sold, all the chametz in the house gets sold," he said.
That helps because it includes cooking utensils, the rabbi said.
"Chametz is absorbed inside the pots," he said.
Going the contract route also helps those who travel for Passover to have fulfilled the commandment for their own home, Langsam said.
Theoretically, the rabbi said, a gentile buying the chametz could decide not to sell it back, but they always do.
"I don't think he wants a thousand Jews coming and knocking on his door," Langsam said.
He also said Jews with the contracts still have to do the traditional "search for chametz" the night before Passover. In that ritual, a few pieces of leavened food are strategically placed for a family to "find." That chametz is then ceremonially burned the next morning.
It's not that Jews like Gordon still won't do their best to get rid of the chametz in their home through cleaning. They will. But for more than 30 years, Gordon also has sold whatever chametz might end up being left in his house.
"We tape off the one cupboard that's got most of our (chametz) in it that we don't use during Passover," said Gordon. "That way, we know not to use it."
After all, it's somebody else's food.
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