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Rabbi Jeremy Conway
Step 1 – Don’t Panic!
Passover is not as difficult or as expensive as you think. It doesn’t have to be a 'spring clean'. You don’t need to scrub the paintwork, wash the curtains, or empty the airing cupboard.
One only has to search and clean for chametz in places where there is a reasonable likelihood that cake or biscuits (for example) may have been left. (Admittedly if you have young children, this includes almost everywhere below three-foot-six). It does usually exclude high shelves and cupboards, the garden shed and between the pages of the Britannica (unless you read it at table during supper!)
Step 2 – House Cleaning
This can be fun! Get the older children to join in (yes, and husbands too). Start on the outside, ie bedrooms and playrooms, and work inwards towards the kitchen, creating “chametz-free zones” as you go. Remember to check behind bedside tables (if you’re brought tea in bed!) and the children’s toy box and coat pockets.
Modern fitness and aerobic fanatics will also tell you that Passover cleaning provides excellent exercise for long unused muscles.
Step 3 – The Passover Order
If you find Passover terribly expensive, shop around, but more important, do shop carefully. Do you really need all that chocolate/lemonade/cinnamon balls?
Don’t forget Shemurah matzo for the Seder nights and grape juice for those who cannot manage the wine.
Step 4 – the Passover Teach-in
Rest your weary bones and take an evening off. Many shuls and adult education programmes arrange a Passover 'teach-in' or demonstration Seder. This will give you some idea of what the frantic activity is all for, and will also provide an opportunity to get any practical queries answered.
Step 5 – Selling the Chametz
This is most, most important, - it is also very simple and does not cost anything. The Torah not only forbids us from eating chametz on Passover, we are also instructed not to own any (see Exodus 12,19&13,7).
In these affluent times we all have stacks of chametz food in our larders (cereals, Marmite, baking powder, powdered soups, etc, all of which contain wheat (flour or yeast) and crates of whisky or beer (which are distilled from grain) in our wine cellars. Ideally one would finish it all off before Passover and drink all the whisky on Purim, but should this prove impossible another alternative is to relinquish ownership by locking it all away and selling it to a non-Jew. Though the non-Jew usually sells it back after Passover this is an entirely valid legal sale both in Jewish and English law. It is preferable to go into shul during the week prior to Passover to sign your name on the rabbi’s contract, but if this is difficult, follow this link or download a Sale of Chametz form here. You can also empower a rabbi over the phone to sell your chametz for you (Kashrut Division: 020 8343 6247).
To fill out a form online click here.
Step 6 – Koshering ‘Keilim’ (utensils)
The laws of koshering are complex, but in a word …don’t! Is it really worth all the time and effort? In this day and age it is so much easier to buy a cheap set of glasses or cutlery which would be quite sufficient for the week of Passover. Even if not so cheap, it will be a great investment in time and energy-saving for the future – easier still, treat yourself to attractive disposable kitchenware, and save yourself the washing up!
Step 7 – Kitchen Cleaning
Here again, let’s take the easiest way. Seal off and sell as many cupboards as possible and clean thoroughly and cover with shelf paper those needed for Passover.
Step 8 – The Cooker and Fridge
Cover all surfaces with plastic or other suitable material which won’t tear. A stainless steel sink can be thoroughly cleaned and koshered by pouring boiling water onto the sink direct from the kettle, other sinks should be covered with foil or adhesive Fablon.
The fridge is easy, merely requiring a thorough clan out. The cooker, and in particular the oven, is the hardest and most important job of all (there is no point in baking with potato flour in a chometz oven) so leave yourself plenty of time. But briefly, it is sensible (and easiest) to get new top parts and oven shelves from the manufacturers. Failing this, such parts should be thoroughly cleaned and, on gas cookers, covered with a metal grid or a double layer of silver foil. The oven must be scrupulously cleaned so that no trace of chametz remains and then heated on top heat for an hour and a half. It is recommended that the oven ceiling be covered with silver foil, or at least the top shelf so covered and not used. Take care not to cover the apertures.
Step 9 – The Chametz Corner
By 12.02pm on Monday 29th March, it is time to ‘go Pesachdik’ and start the cooking and baking. If at all possible set up a little ‘Chametz corner’ with an electric ring in the morning room or laundry room – or even the hall – so that the kitchen can be completely Pesachdik.
Step 10 – Cooking and Baking
There are many delicious recipes for Passover, so choose a good Passover cookery book from the wide range available.
Remember, however, everyone loves coconut pyramids and almond macaroons and many of the simplest things taste delicious on Passover (witness egg and salt water) so don’t exhaust yourself staying up all night – save that for Seder night!
Step 11 – ‘Bedikat Chametz’
Sunday 28th March
On night, as soon after nightfall (8.13pm) as possible, begins the ‘official’ search for chametz. This is not a mere ritual but should be a proper and thorough search. It is said that the reason behind the custom of putting out ten small pieces of bread beforehand is to stimulate everyone to search properly. (Make sure that someone knows where the pieces are and that crumbs are not scattered around in the process). Gather the children, a candle, a feather and a piece of wood or bag (the original brush and pan), make the bracha (….al Biyur Chametz) usually found at the beginning of the Hagada and proceed through the entire house searching all corners and crevices.
It is permissible – even possibly preferable – to use an electric torch, which is easier, safer and more effective, but it is nice to begin with a candle in the centuries old tradition.
Step 12 – ‘Biyur Chametz’
Monday 29th March
In the morning, get the men up and off to shul for the fast of the Firstborn Siyum. Final breakfast and elevenses must be over by the ‘fourth hour of the day’ which is 10.58am this year. Any remaining chametz (which is not being sold) must be taken outside and destroyed by the ‘fifth hour’ 12.02pm. You will probably find that the combination of biscuits, bread and Weetabix on a damp drizzly morning is not particularly inflammable, but a little lighter fluid fluid will encourage it no end (please take care!). There is also a custom to burn last year’s dried up lulav and Hoshanas together with the chametz and this certainly makes a good blaze. (Those who genuinely find it difficult to burn the chametz may destroy it in some other way, (e.g. flushing it down the toilet). After destroying the chametz it is very important to say the Kol Chamirah declaration in a language which one understands: ‘All manner of leaven which is in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have removed it or not, should be annulled and ownerless like the dust of the earth’.
Step 13
Everyone has their own peculiar Passover problem, be it the goldfish, the rabbit, the au-pair girl, or the caravan. Whatever it is, fill it on the dotted line and don’t forget to sort it out!....................................................................
Step 14 – Preparations for the Seder
As well as not being able to eat bread on erev Passover, matzo is also strictly off limits until the Seder (so remember to prepare something for lunch, particularly as you can’t grab a snack of crackers or Ryvita!)
The first Seder preparation is to get the kids off to bed. They must get some rest so as to be awake and alert at the Seder. Here is a brief checklist of Seder items:
Matzah.
All matzah used for the mitzvah on Seder night should be Shemurah, which is baked specifically for the purpose of the mitzvah – often though not necessarily by hand – from grain which was guarded from the moment it was cut against any dampness which could cause it to become chametz.
On each of the three occasions that matzo is eaten during the Seder ceremony, one must eat a kazayis which is a piece four inches by seven.
Wine. Everyone needs a wine glass for the four cups, which should be large enough to contain at least 3.3fl oz (86cc).
Maror. Many people use raw horseradish for maror which is certainly pretty bitter. However, Cos lettuce and chicory (endives) are also acceptable and are a lot more palatable. This is worth realising since one is supposed to eat a kazayis of maror too! Lettuce should be particularly thoroughly washed to be sure all (non-kosher!) insects are removed.
Karpas. Any vegetable may be used for karpas, but many have the custom to use potato or parsley.
There are four other special items needed for the Seder: the charoset, the salt water, the roasted bone and the roasted egg.
Step 15 – The Seder
Well done, you’ve made it! Everyone is finally gathered around the beautiful festive table. But don’t nod off just yet. Make sure there is a modern, intelligible and lively Hagada for everyone. The Hagada should be understood by all. In what is probably the only reference to English in early halachic sources, the Shulchan Aruch says, ‘So did Rabbenu Yitzhock of London (13th century). He translated the Hagada into the vernacular so that the women and children should understand it’.
Long before audio-visual educational aids were ever thought of, our sages ingeniously designed the Seder as a dramatic and experimental reliving of the event.
We all actually experience the bitterness of that slavery (Maror), the salty tears (Karpas) the punishing power of the Ten Plagues (spilling the wine), the bread of affliction (Matzah), the joy and exhilaration of salvation (Four cups and Hallel) and we finish off with the dry taste of the Matzot (Afikomen) as we consider our future and sing out ‘Leshana habaah bi Yerushalayim – next year in Jerusalem’. Spare a thought too for our brethren unable to celebrate Pesach as we do in freedom. Make sure everyone, young and old, joins in, for only with tasting comes understanding.
And as the Seder draws to a close, don’t forget to add a silent prayer that G-d should grant you the strength to do it all again next year.
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