36 April 18 • 2019
jn
Tradition varies about Pesach rules.
Strict
or Not
Strict?
A
dialogue overheard in more
than one Jewish household
goes like this:
Husband: “I can’
t find my pen (or
reading glasses or whatever). Have
you seen it?”
Wife: “Don’
t worry, it will show
up before Passover.”
“It will show up before Passover,”
of course, because the family will
clean every inch of the house before
the holiday, making sure the home
contains not a crumb of leavened
food (chametz) and, incidentally
finding lost objects. The Mishnah,
1,800 years ago, insists on searching
every place where leavened food
was brought (Pesahim 1:1); in
practice, many Jewish householders
go further, scrubbing even places
where they anticipate finding no
leavened food.
Rebecca Sorani of Rishon Letzion
in Israel, writes, in a statement
familiar to many other observant
Jews: “I am sure most of what I
do is unnecessary! Throwing out
expired medications, washing
every item of bedding in the
house, cleaning out every drawer
in bedrooms where we never bring
food … washing the windows …”
A local woman agreed with
Sorani that her housecleaning
during the month before Passover
was unnecessary, according to
Jewish law, but she added, “Without
the motivation of Passover, I
would never get around to spring
cleaning.”
Yehudis Brea of Oak Park
sticks with the necessary Passover
preparations. “I’
m at the stage of
life that I only do what is absolutely
necessary, thank God. The Pesach
hysteria has long passed,” she says.
In other aspects of preparing for
Passover, rabbis looking at books
of Jewish law and ordinary Jews
looking at what their grandparents
did, have, over the years, decided to
become more and more stringent.
Perhaps this tendency originates
with a statement attributed to Rabbi
Yitzhak Luria, the 15th-century
kabbalist: “One should follow all
the strictures on Passover.”
A notable break from this
tendency comes from none other
than the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of
Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef.
As part of its routine duties, the
Chief Rabbinate in Israel issues
guidelines for how certified kosher
kitchens in hotels should maintain
standards over Passover.
On March 26, journalist Hezki
Stern, writing for Kikkar Shabbat,
reported that Rabbi Yosef pulled
this year’
s booklet of guidelines. He
instructed Moshe Dagan, executive
director of the rabbinate: “Do not
print it. Let us consider this for a
couple of more days and correct it.”
Rabbi Yosef observed that the
authors of the guidelines “seek to
follow the principle the stricter
the better” and “introduced many,
many strictures.”
“I do not know who did
this, to be so strict with the
people of Israel; things that are
completely permitted, permitted
by all opinions, they have been
forbidden,” he says. ■
passover
LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
MUSIC BY SARA BAREILLES
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Happy Passover!
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