Bereshit -- In The Beginning

On the Shabbat just past, we read Parshat Bereshit (Genesis 1:1-6:8). I wanted to get this up in advance, but that's not the way it worked this week. However, since Bereshit is the beginning of the Torah, I want to start with some thoughts about Bereshit rather than picking up the task later on.

There is so much going on in the text of Bereshit. The world is created, right down to the very last detail of creeping things on the earth and a day of rest. Adam and Eve, the first human beings named in the Torah, succumb to temptation and are thrown out of the ideal world God created for them. Their sons, Cain and Abel, indulge in a rivalry that ends up with Abel dead and Cain exiled. Adam and Eve and Cain all have more children and these children and their children spread across the face of the earth until their descendants start to anger God. The last descendants of Adam and Eve mentioned in Bereshit are Noah and his sons, though the story of their adventures isn't covered until the following parshah.

Delving into this richness of narrative to pull out one or two specific things to talk about is difficult. Perhaps that is why we read and re-read the Torah every year. After much thought, I realized that what I want to write about this year is the concept of b'tzelem Elohim, that we are created in the image of God.


Obviously, Michaelangelo and many other artists have fostered the idea that the image of God means that we physically resemble God the Creator. Or, probably more accurately, God the Creator resembles human beings.

There's a joke that goes
Q: "How do we know God is a baseball fan?"
A: "Because the Bible starts 'In the Big Inning'."

I love baseball, therefore God must love baseball, too. I have two legs and two arms and one head, therefore God must also have two legs and two arms and one head. Makes sense, doesn't it?

But I cherish the idea of an Unknowable God, One Who cannot be defined by -- or restricted to -- human form. And if this Unknowable God created me and you  b'tzelem Elohim, what does that mean?

Human beings, alone among God's Creation, were created  b'tzelem Elohim. So I look at what differentiates human beings from the rest of Creation and I keep coming back to the same thing -- the urge to create. I can already hear some objections out there -- that birds and other animals build nests and structures. I agree that many animals build. I disagree that these animals are creating something -- that is, that they are making something which has never been seen before. One bird's nest, one beaver's dam, is much like the next.

Human beings, on the other hand, are always creating. Some of our creations are beautiful, such as great art or poetry. Some of our creations are useful, such as buildings and bridges. Some of our creations are both beautiful and utilitarian, such as the Taj Mahal or quilts. And some of our creations are detrimental and even cruel, such as atomic bombs and leg-hold traps.

What all of these things have in common, regardless of their beauty or utility or destructive potential is that human beings conceived of them and then caused them to come into existence. I believe that this drive to create something new is what separates humans from the rest of God's Creation, as well as what makes us b'tzelem Elohim, made in God's image.

The Three Weeks, The Nine Days, and Tisha B'Av

Tomorrow, June 29, is the 17th of Tammuz on the Jewish calendar and marks the beginning of the Three Weeks before Tisha B'Av, which commemorates a variety of disasters in Jewish history including the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. All three weeks before Tisha B'Av are a kind of mourning period during which many restrictions are practiced by some Jews, with the last Nine Days being an even more intense period of mourning.

I'm thinking about this tonight because I haven't posted much to this blog recently. That's because there's not much going on between Shavuot and the beginning of Elul in the Jewish calendar -- apart from Tisha B'Av. Also, a friend recently tried to start a discussion about the Three Weeks by sending me a long list of the restrictions during this period. A few of the most notable (for those who don't want to go read the whole article) are:

-- No weddings or other public celebrations.
-- No listening to music.
-- No haircuts or shaving.

During the Nine Days, additional restrictions are added, including:

-- Purchasing only necessities (i.e., nothing for pleasure).
-- Not planting flowers and trees or doing home improvements.
-- Not wearing freshly-laundered clothing.

On the evening of Tisha B'Av, the book of Eicha (Lamentations) is read using a special melody. People sit on the floor rather than on chairs because one should not be comfortable. Tisha B'Av is also a full fast day -- from sundown to sundown -- just like Yom Kippur.

All of this is prelude to admitting that I do not observe the Three Weeks, the Nine Days, nor Tisha B'Av, though various members of my family do so. And I have reasons for choosing not to observe, which I will get into in a moment. I know people who do follow all of the restrictions and I respect them for their choice, but I honestly feel that it is not one that I can make for myself.

The article I mentioned earlier states: The "Three Weeks" between the 17th of Tammuz and the Tisha B'Av have historically been days of misfortune and calamity for the Jewish people.  

This is the first part of why I choose not to observe this period as  a time of mourning. I've read and researched the catalog of disasters and calamities that have been historically assigned to the Three Weeks. It's pretty clear to me that some calamities for which no date is known have been tossed into the mix to increase the feelings of doom and despair. Not that that's a bad thing -- at least we confine all this catastrophe to one period rather than moping about it on separate days throughout the year. But there's a strong element of superstition at play as well, a sort of sympathetic magic. To avoid joy just because sad things once happened on the same day simply doesn't make sense to me. It makes the Three Weeks into some kind of Bermuda Triangle of diasaster -- avoid it at all costs because something else bad might happen.

The biggest catastrophes assigned to Tisha B'Av are, of course, the destruction of both the First and Second Temples. And this is the main reason why I have chosen not to observe Tisha B'Av and the period preceding it. I honestly believe that the destruction of the Temples was -- in the long haul -- a positive thing for the Jews. 

If the Temples had continued to stand, I do not think Jews would have survived to modern times. Temple Judaism was an ancient religion, made for a people who needed the sacrifices, the pageantry, the mystery. When we lost the Temple, we were forced to come up with creative solutions to keep the faith of Abraham alive. Rabbinic Judaism was that solution. In my opinion, it was a brilliant solution. Rabbinic Judaism has kept us together right up to the modern era.

I, for one, do not want to see the Temple rebuilt. I don't want the re-institution of Temple practices and sacrifices. 

One person to whom I offered these arguments asked in return "Do you want to see the coming of Moshiach - and the end of our exile?" For some people, the restoration of the Temple and ingathering of exiles is coincident with the coming of the Moshiach.

I gave her question a lot of thought, and decided that my answer would depend a lot on what is meant by Moshiach (Messiah). And exile, for that matter. (Now I feel like Bill Clinton.....)

The more I study mentions of Moshiach in the Tanakh, the less certain I am about what Moshiach is. Is Moshiach an individual human being? An ideal period which is, regrettably, in our future? It seems to me that much of the mythology around Moshiach  (and I use "mythology" in its anthropological sense -- a popular belief or assumption that has grown up around someone or something -- not as a term indicating that something that is untrue) comes from Talmudic times rather than from Biblical times. If Moshiach is an anointed leader from the line of David (which would be a little hard to establish at this remove, but I don't discount miracles) who will unite b'nai Israel (the children of Israel; i.e., the Jews) and bring in an age of universal peace -- of course I want to see that. 

Given the deep divisions in modern Jewish life, I think uniting b'nai Israel would be a miracle all on its own.

What is exile? In the times of the Bible, exile truly meant isolation, a rift between home/Israel and Diaspora. Today, with instant communications and global awareness, exile doesn't mean quite the same thing. In many ways, Jews today are more connected to Israel than at any time in the last 2,000 years or so. We can go there pretty much at will, we can find out what is happening there with minimal effort, we can help our people with our money and actions, we can voice our opinions, if we are Israeli citizens we can vote even if we aren't physically there.

In what ways are we exiled today? We have the right to return to eretz Israel. The only thing that keeps a Jew today from making aliyah is personal choice and most American Jews choose not to return. 

Having written all that, I had to laugh a little because the name of this blog is "Living in Galut" and galut means exile.The exile I had in mind when I started this blog was physical or geographic isolation from centers of Jewish life. Yet even here in the "Jewish wilderness of New Mexico" I can choose to lead a Jewish life. And, even here in the Jewish wilderness of New Mexico, I could make the choice to return to a richer Jewish community, or to make the move to Israel.

Shavuot

Shavuot is often trivialized in the modern world. It falls at an awkward time of year, after many religious schools have finished up classes. It doesn't have any big symbols like building a sukkah for Sukkot, nor any major rituals like the Pesach seder. However, there is a lot to like about Shavuot and it has become one of my favorite holidays.

Like most Jewish holidays, Shavuot has both an ancient agricultural meaning and a more recent (though still pretty old) rabbinic meaning. Agriculturally, Shavuot is known as Chag HaBikurim, the festival of the first fruits or Chag HaKatsir, the festival harvest. Through these names, Shavuot is tied to the wheat harvest and to the custom of bringing the first and best of the harvest to the Temple in ancient times.

The agricultural connotations have little meaning to Jews living in Galut, as we do. Therefore, the later rabbinical layers have come to take on some very special meanings. My personal favorite is Z'man Matan Torah -- The Time when the Torah was Given. The tradition is that on Shavuot all Jews -- not only those who were living at the time, but all Jews in all generations -- stood together at Mt. Sinai and received the Torah.
To remember receiving the Torah, every year on Shavuot, we stand again in our congregations all over the world as the Ten Commandments are read from the Torah.

In anticipation of this re-enactment, many groups and synagogue hold a tikkun leyl Shavuot the night before the Ten Commandments are read. A tikkun is an all-night study session intended to get you in the right frame of mind to receive Torah. Receiving Torah, after all, is a dynamic and ongoing process.

Our local community does not hold an all-night tikkun, so this year we invited some friends over for a small personal tikkun. Various people promised to teach something, or to lead a discussion, but it was kind of a free-form evening and we figured we would go until we ran out of things to say.

First of all, we had to rearrange our family room to make room for everyone, including comfortable pillows and blankets in case people (or children) felt like taking a nap.

Okay, the pillows and blankets hadn't arrived yet when that picture was taken, but at least there were lots of places to sit and lounge around. We also set up a tent on the back patio so that the youngest members of the group could settle down out of the way.

The early part of the evening was somewhat oriented toward the kids, with the adults having various discussions in the background. They made a delicious Torah cake, where they had to look up verses in the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) to figure out the ingredients. Fortunately, I had checked out the verses the night before because there were a couple of errors in the version I found. The corrected version is available as a PDF.

Other kid-oriented activities: We read a midrash about b'nai Israel receiving the Ten Commandments from G-d at Mt. Sinai. The entire decalogue was said all at once and it was hard for the people to understand, so they asked Moses to go up alone and receive the word of G-d. So we stood 10 adults around the room with abbreviated versions of each commandment and we read them all at once. Afterwards, we had a nice discussion of what the kids actually heard.

Around midnight, we took a short walk around the neighborhood and then went out into the back yard to gaze up at the sky. Another midrash tells how, at midnight on erev Shavuot, the heavens open up and prayers are heard.

We also had a couple of simple crafts available for the kids -- ones that required little to no adult supervision -- such as tissue paper flowers.

One of the participants prepared a list of topics she was ready to talk about, and has allowed me to reproduce it here:

Jews and Brisket
The Changes of Our People - Our Nation
Intermarriage
Chinese Food
British Jews vs American Jews and Self Identity
Who is a Jew
Patriarchs, Mad and Imperfect
The First Born Jewish Son, Syndrome
Belief levels, Mystic vs "Reality"
Prepare to be Assimilated
Jewish Mothers and Food
Why don't we listen harder to our Converts?
Do We Need the Diaspora - Cue Community
Jews and the "Swan Lake Syndrome"
Jewish souls
Being Isaak
Jewish Identity in America Today, from my point of view
The connection between Midrash and OCD in Jews
To Frum or not too Frum
30 minutes crash courses and introduction to Judaism
The Flood
The history of the Tikkun

What is truly interesting about this list was that, over the course of the evening and early morning, we touched on almost all of these topics, even though our "official" list of topics was slightly different:

Jewish views toward death and afterlife
What makes a Jewish community?
Day and Night in Jewish Thought
What is holy/holiness/a holy people?
The Evil Eye, amulets, and superstitions
Why being a Red Sox fan is similar to being Jewish

We even had a participant via webcam from England. I hate to confess that I don't really remember most of what she talked about because I kind of dozed off right about then, but it was nice to have yet another point of view presented.

In the morning, we woke up the kids and ate blintzes and fruit. And then we went to the synagogue, where I got to read the 10 commandments from the Torah. One of my favorite Torah readings of all time.

All in all, it was a very satisfying experience. If you don't have an all-night tikkun where you live, think about putting one together next year.

I Didn't Forget ... I Just Got Busy

I didn't forget to write about Bamidbar, this week's Torah reading. I just got overwhelmed by preparing for two of my children to move back into the house for the summer. And I really wanted to write about Tikkun Leyl Shavuot instead, anyway.

Maybe tomorrow night while I am on the road to La-La Land to pick up the offspring, I will take some time to write about what we are planning to do for Shavuot.

Counting the Omer

I don't know why I said I would write about counting the omer. It's not really a custom that I personally perform. Here's how it works -- every night, starting with the second night of Pesach, you say a blessing and then a formula that states the day of the omer. Tonight, for example, is the 38th day of the omer. (Jewish days begin at sundown, which is another topic for some day.)

Though I don't formally count the omer each night, I do keep track of the omer. When trying to figure out why, I came up with two reasons:

First of all, counting the omer is a commandment. So I follow the spirit of the law here, if not the absolute letter.

Second, counting the omer ends and culminates with the holiday of Shavuot, the day on which we received the Torah on Mt. Sinai. Apart from being one of the three major festivals of the Jewish year (along with Sukkot and Pesach), Shavuot commemorates the day we (b'nai Israel) truly became a people with a common purpose. I love this significance of the omer.

Since there's not a whole lot involved with counting the omer and I don't do it anyway, I'm not going to explain how to do it.

Some thoughts on Behar/Bechukotai

This coming Shabbat, we will read the double parshah of Behar/Bechukotai. It is found in Leviticus 25:1 - 27:34.

I thought preparing a short discussion of the weekly parshah would be a relatively simple task, but -- as so often happens when one studies Torah -- I found myself going in an unexpected direction.

Here's the way it works. Sometimes, for some people, that is. You read the text from the Torah and start thinking about it. Maybe you read a few commentaries written by learned men and women from the past and the present. As you continue to think, other things get mixed in. Maybe something going on in your life; maybe something going on in the world around you. And before you know it, you have a different perspective on what the Torah is teaching.

I suppose that is why we read the Torah over and over again. Each year we read the end of the Torah, the death of Moses, and immediately start again with Creation. Each year, we find that something different speaks to us, or that where we are in our lives brings a different understanding of what we have read so many times before.

Behar/Bechukotai is what we call a double parshah -- two for the price of one. This happens because Jews run on a lunar calendar and the rest of the world runs on a solar calendar. Because Jewish months are not quite the same length, every so often we toss in an extra month so that our fall holidays continue to occur in the fall and our spring holidays in the spring. No biggie -- there are whole books (and web sites) devoted to keeping track of these things.

Behar means "on the mountain". In this case, the mountain is Mt. Sinai, where the Law was given to Moses and accepted by b'nai Israel. As you might expect, Behar contains many laws. Bechukotai continues this theme -- it means "by/about My laws". These parshiot are the last two readings in the book of Vayikra (Leviticus) and, as just about anyone who leyns Torah would say, about time. There's not a lot of story in this book and parts of it are hard to slog through.

Behar starts with laws concerning the shmittah year, the seventh year in which land must be given a rest with no planting or harvesting going on. Then there's a discussion of the Jubilee, the 50th year, in which a variety of things happen. Both the shmittah years and the Jubilee years apply only to the land of Israel. After that, there are a number of laws about dealing with your "brother" or "fellow" -- in either case, these laws refer to how we are to treat fellow Jews.

Bechukotai is known primarily for a long list of rather gruesome curses, though some blessings bracket the curses and there are more laws about vows and assessments toward the end of the parshah.

Now that we've laid the ground work, here's what happens.

Two news stories caught my attention over the past week. In one, a homeless man came to the defense of a woman who was being attacked and ended up being stabbed himself. He lay on the sidewalk, bleeding, for over an hour while people walked past him. Some stopped to look; one even took a picture with a cell phone. By the time someone called 911 and EMTs responded, this man had died.

The second story is even more chilling for me. An off-shore drilling rig, which exploded while killing at least 11 people, is now spewing oil into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This story is very personal for me. I used to work in the Oil & Gas division of the Department of Interior in New Orleans, reviewing permits for offshore drilling rigs. I was there far too long ago for this particular rig to have been something I would have had any responsibility for, but I know a lot about offshore drilling rigs and the life that the workers on these rigs lead. The Gulf Coast waters were my back yard for a significant portion of my life. I know just how fragile the ecology of the Gulf coast is and my heart aches every time I see the pictures from the Gulf. When I read the place names, I can picture each. And I can imagine the devastation coming to places I have known and loved.

So what do these two stories have to do with this week's Torah reading? Good question.

Shmittah is practice of leaving the land to its own devices every seventh year -- neither planting crops nor harvesting perennial crops such as fruit trees. These laws were given, at least in part, to teach the nomadic Jews about stewardship of the land they would one day live upon. Not only were they being taught respect for the land, but also respect for the owner of the land -- who is not any individual, but God. God gives us the use of the land.... and it is our responsibility to take care of God's land. If we extend this notion of God's ownership of the land to the entire world, what do oil spills say about our use of the gift of God's Creation?

Ethical treatment is primarily geared at treatment of fellow Jews. Many of the laws in parshah Bechukotai deal with how we are to treat our "brothers", meaning other Jews. We must not cheat them in business affairs, or charge them interest, or -- should a fellow Jew become indebted to us and give us service to pay off that debt -- treat him like we treat our slaves. We don't, as a rule, own slaves these days, but the principle stands -- we should respect and uphold the community of fellow Jews.

First ourselves and our families, then the Jews in our local community, then Jews as a worldwide community, and only after that do we have a responsibility to non-Jews. But what does it say about us if we can ignore any person in need?

What I am taking away from my study of Behar/Bechukotai this week, this year, is something that I already know, but which perhaps I need to reminded of. I have a responsibility toward the Earth. I have a responsibility toward other people. As Hillel says in Mishnah Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 1:14:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am for myself alone, what am I?
And if not now, when?

The Way It Will Be ... I Hope

Too much is going on -- if not around the house, then in my head. So I've come up with a plan to post to this blog twice a week from now on. Here's the general plan:

Sunday or Monday -- Something about the Parsha Hashavuot, the weekly Torah reading or, depending on whether a holiday is imminent, the Torah readings associated with the holiday. I'm going to be posting something early in the week for the upcoming Shabbat.

Thursday or Friday -- Something else. It could be related to what's going on in the Jewish calendar (e.g., Rosh Hodesh or holidays), something about Jewish living or symbols (e.g., kashruth - keeping kosher, mezuzah, tallit) or even something more general (e.g., what is kavvanah, tzedakah, mitzvah - give you a hint, a mitzvah is not a "good deed").

Because today is Friday, the first post under this new scheme will be delivered no later than Monday, May 3. I'll write something about the double Parshah Behar/Bechukotai (Leviticus 25:1 - 27:34), which will be read in synagogues around the world on Saturday, May 8, 2010. I'm not sure yet what direction these weekly divrei Torah (words of Torah) will take. Perhaps some ideas of things to do or discuss with your family, perhaps my own thoughts on the reading, perhaps something else altogether.

For the later post next week, I will probably talk about counting the omer, a ritual we engage in between the second night of Passover and Shavuot.

The post-Pesach wind-up and let-down

Remember all that time and effort spent getting the kitchen ready for Pesach? Well, once Pesach is over, it's time to change the kitchen back to everyday use. One could choose, of course, to keep the kitchen in Pesach mode for a while longer. But that would mean no cereal or bread or muffins or cookies or pasta or anything else that uses chametz. So, we bite the bullet and return to normalcy. Whatever that is.

That's the pile of empty boxes that used to contain our Pesach dishes. And here's the other side of the pile:

Yup, we unloaded all those boxes and washed everything just so that we could use the dishes, pots and pans, and utensils for 8 days. We packed up the meat dishes first:

Relatively uneventful, except that there were a few meat leftovers that had to be repackaged in plastic wrap or foil or a plastic bag -- things that could be discarded later rather than Pesach meat dishes.

Then the pareve dishes, since most of what we eat is dairy:

Most of our pareve stuff is either glass (like the wine glasses) or things that are used only for vegetables (like the food processor and salad spinner and juicer).

And finally, the dairy dishes, which form the bulk of our Pesach kitchen stuff:

We did most of the packing during the afternoon of the eighth day of Pesach. Anyone who wanted a snack ate leftovers off of paper plates. The paper towels used to line the cabinets and drawers were pulled up, as was the Contact paper that covered the counters.

The only good thing about packing up the kitchen eight days after setting it up for Pesach is that it generally takes much less time. And you can fudge a bit -- for example, the counters got uncovered in bits and pieces as we had time.

That's our regular dairy dish drainer sitting on top of the still-covered counter. And also a glimpse of the dishwasher, which decided to start leaking on the day we switched over to our Pesach kitchen. Still better than the stove crapping out on us like last year.

Now that we're back to our regular kitchen operations, it's time to start thinking about the next holiday -- Shavuot -- and how we get there by counting the omer. Next time.

The Seder Experience

A seder is a type of ceremony or ritual with a meal inserted about two-thirds of the way through. Yes, that's right -- there's quite a bit of seder after the meal, though there is a certain segment of the population who never get that far. Speaking from personal experience -- it's worth the extra effort. A great book for learning more about how a seder is constructed and what each of the parts entails is Dr. Ron Wolfson's The Art of Jewish Living: The Passover Seder.

As usual, since living here in the Galut, we hosted two seders (sedarim) at our home. What was a bit unusual was that we had pretty much the same people here both nights. In past years, we have been asked to invite various Jewish strays (in or around town at the right time, far from home) and/or have invited people we knew to join us for at least one night. The second night is usually a smaller group and often just our immediate family. This year, we had the same two families join us both nights, with a few extra people on the first night only.

We had to scramble a bit to make the second night different yet enjoyable. I did some online searching and came away with bunches of ideas, but only two that we tried to implement.

First of all, we decided to scramble the seder. Seder means "order" and there is a list of 15 steps that are generally agreed upon (as you can see, the meal is #11).

1. Kiddush & first cup of wine
2. Urchatz - wash hands w/o blessing
3. Karpas - eat green vegetable
4. Yahatz - break middle matzoh
5. Maggid - The telling of the Exodus story
6. Rachatz -- wash hands w/blessing
7. Motzi -- blessing over bread/the meal
8. Matzah -- blessing for eating matah
9. Maror -- eat bitter herb
10. Korech -- Hillel sandwich
11. Shulchan Orech -- the meal
12. Tzafun -- Afikomen, end of the meal
13. Barech -- Birkat Hamazon
14. Hallel -- songs of praise
15. Nirtzah - conclusion of seder

The step that generally takes the longest for religious Jews is #5, or Maggid, the telling of the story of the Exodus -- along with a lot of digressions. So in addition to treating each of the 15 steps as individual pieces of the seder, I also broke down the Maggid portion into a bunch of individual pieces. Here's the list I had:

Kadesh-Urchatz (mnemonic listing the steps of the seder)
Kiddush & first cup of wine
Urchatz - wash hands w/o blessing
Karpas - eat green vegetable
Yahatz - break middle matzoh
Maggid - Ha Lachma Anya
Maggid - Mah Nishtana
Maggid - Avadim Hayinu
Maggid -- Rabbis talking until dawn
Maggid - Four children
Maggid - How Jacob went to Egypt
Maggid -- Vehi She'amda
Maggid -- Torah and midrash
Maggid -- Wonders and signs
Maggid -- Ten plagues
Maggid -- Rabinnical math
Maggid - Dayenu
Maggid -- Pesach, Matzah, Maror
Maggid -- L'fichach and Hallelujah
Maggid -- Second cup
Rachatz -- wash hands w/blessing
Motzi, Matzah -- blessings and eat matzah
Maror -- eat bitter herb
Korech -- Hillel sandwich

Shulchan Orech

Tzafun -- Afikomen, the end of the meal
Barech -- Birkat Hamazon, blessings after the meal
Third cup of wine
Fill fourth cup and welcome Elijah the prophet
Hallel, songs of praise
Fourth cup of wine
Nirtzah - conclusion of seder
Songs - L'shanah Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim
Songs - dir Hu
Songs - Echad Mi Yodea
Songs - Chad Gadya

I printed out the list and cut it up into individual segments. I decided to leave Shulchan Orech -- the festive meal -- in its usual place, so I put the slips from before the meal in one cup and the slips for after the meal in a second cup. I also made a chart with ALL the pieces so that we could fill things in as we pulled them out and completed them.

There were a few glitches, and we refined things a bit in a discussion after the fact so that, if we ever do this again, the "big" kiddush will come before the first cup of wine and certain blessings will be said in an appropriate order. But all in all, the scrambled seder was a big success. We had lots of conversation and discussion. Encountering familiar things in a different order helped me, at least, to think about them in a new way.

The second idea I had gleaned from my online searches was really for the kids in attendance -- something for them to do if they needed a break from the seder. I found kosher-for-Passover sugar cubes and set them up on a table in a separate room so that the kids could build pyramids. They destroyed their Great Pyramid before I could get a picture, but here are some of their other efforts. First, the Great Sphinx:

The Sphinx and some pyramids:

A cat (they were sacred in Egypt, after all):

A few sugar cubes got eaten before the evening ended, but everyone had a great time building things. Even a few adults, who shall remain nameless, got into the act.

Pesach preparations -- craziness at the end

The last few days before the start of Pesach are probably the busiest in our annual round. As I've mentioned before, we do not change over our kitchen or do any Pesach cooking until the very last minute. This year, the first seder was on a Monday night. We spent pretty much all day on Sunday cleaning the house, especially the kitchen. Sunday night we did the b'dikat chametz, the search for chametz, and on Monday morning we ate our donuts and burned our leftover chametz.

Also on Sunday we changed over to Pesach mode, which means we finished putting all of our regular dishes and utensils into temporary storage in the garage, brought in all of our Pesach stuff, rinsed or washed all the Pesach dishes and utensils, put the Pesach stuff into our cabinets (which had been lined -- we use paper towels, for ease of use and disposal afterwards), covered the counters, kashered the oven and other appliances as well as the kitchen sink, and .... oh, yeah, moved the remainder of the chametz-dik foods out of the house.

With everyone home, plus a non-Jewish friend who came over to help, multiple tasks were going on at the same time. The pantry shelves were lined with paper towels and we moved some of our Pesach purchases onto the shelves:

At the same time, we were cleaning the kitchen thoroughly and packing up any dishes, utensils, kitchen linens, pots and pans, storage containers, etc., etc., etc., and so and and so forth that were still lying about. And someone else was dusting and vacuuming and mopping and doing some general cleaning.

The refrigerator shelves had to be cleared off (still some chametz there), washed, rinsed with boiling water, and replaced. One of the reasons that we bought a refrigerator with glass shelves is that they are easy to kasher for Pesach -- no need to line them, as some do with wire shelves.

 Uh-oh. Still some bread and soda and other stuff to get rid of. Fortunately, we own a second refrigerator, which is very handy at this time of year. We clean it and line the shelves, then store perishable Pesach supplies there until we switch over the kitchen. Once the main fridge is ready for Pesach, we use a shelf or two in the second refrigerator to store any perishable foods that we will use again after Pesach (e.g., our Brita pitchers, open juice or margarine).

Cleaning the refrigerator is always  fun because, no matter what we think, there is always a collection of crumbs at the bottom. I have no idea how they get there -- it's not like we leave loose baked goods in the fridge. But whatever.

All clean and ready to go:

I always love seeing my refrigerator like this, right at the beginning of Pesach. Once the cooking starts, this refrigerator will never be this empty again -- until next year.

The refrigerator freezer compartment also needs some special cleaning, even though everything is cold cold cold. Ice cream and leftover ice cream pie need to be consumed and whatever spilled on the bottom of the freezer has to be cleaned up. (Funny thing about that piece of ice cream pie. We forgot to eat it and then found it in the freezer a few hours before the first seder, past the time at which our sale of chametz had taken effect. It was "dust of the earth" and I had to throw it away, even though I felt a few pangs of regret.)

We also had to cover the kitchen counters. We generally use Contact paper. Sometimes we just tape the Contact paper down, but other years (including this one), we peel off the backing and apply the Contact paper directly to the counter surfaces.

Because we have at least one big meal each year during Pesach that includes meat, we have more meat dishes, pot and pans, and utensils for Pesach than we do for daily use. This largesse takes up more room, therefore we labeled the cabinets and drawers in order to lessen confusion.

As for the stove and oven, dishwasher, microwave, and sinks -- opinions on how to kasher these items vary. This is the sort of thing you should consult your local halachic authority (e.g., rabbi) about.

Once everything was completed -- whew! -- we could start preparing food for our sedarim.

Pesach countdown -- minus 7 days ?

Unfortunately, the last few days before Pesach are always a little .... busy. Especially the last two days, which -- in my family -- are spent changing the kitchen from regular usage to Pesach usage and then preparing for the seder (or sedarim). Pesach is further complicated by the fact that it lasts for 8 days, but 4 or 5 of those days are either chag (holiday) or Shabbat, during which some Jews refrain from various types of work, including going online and updating blogs.

What with one thing and another, I'm just going to have to backtrack to fill in the blanks. I am actually going to break down the remainder of the Pesach stuff into 3 parts and publish each on a separate day. That's just to give myself a little breathing space.

1 -- Pesach preparation, the final stages.

2 -- The sedarim we hosted this year.

3 -- Returning to normal after Pesach.

After all that, it will be time to think about the next thing on the Jewish calendar -- counting the Omer.

Pesach countdown -- 4 Days to Go, Part III

Enough about the cleaning!

We are also spending some time thinking about how to make two seders on consecutive nights with pretty much the same people distinctive and fun. The children of this household are old enough that, if it were just us chickens, we would have a second-night seder that was mostly discussion and (lots of) digression. This year, however, two other families will be joining us both nights, along with a few other assorted individuals and these families bring children with them! Always fun.

The first night, we will do what we normally do when young children are around. Years ago, we found a haggadah that included a puppet play that tells the story of Exodus called We Tell It To Our Children.

There are some aspects of this particular seder plan that we choose not to follow, but we excerpted the play, added to it here and there, and use it most years for at least one seder. We call our version of the play "They Came From Goshen" for reasons that are obvious to everyone in my family, but we give full credit to Mary Ann Barrows Wark, who wrote the haggadah.

 

As much fun as we have with this puppet play, we don't want to do it two nights in a row with the same people. So I've been online looking for ideas for making the second night memorable. More on that later -- I don't want to give anything away just yet.

Pesach countdown -- 4 Days to Go, Part II

Time has been very strange. Tomorrow my sons who attend college in California will be coming home. They will be here for Shabbat and then they become slave labor because on Sunday we will finish cleaning for Pesach and we will switch our kitchen from everyday life to Pesach readiness.

I have actually been taking it kind of easy in terms of cleaning this year. It's not entirely deliberate -- I damaged the knee that wasn't already hurt and some kinds of movement are, quite literally, a pain.

Since my knee is generally less painful in the morning than in the evening, I have been trying to do the  bulk of the cleaning and other preparations in the morning. This morning, it was time to defrost the freezer:

Because we have been getting rid of food (mostly by eating it), there wasn't an incredible amount of food in the freezer. (You should see it at the end of the summer when it's full of stuff from the garden!) When I replaced the food, there was still a lot of available space:

The food on the top shelf is for Pesach use. Of the rest, some will be eaten in the next couple of days, but most will be sold with our other chametz. The freezer would be fuller, but I haven't replaced the two cases (a year's worth) of Girl Scout cookies that arrived a couple of week ago.

Also, because we won't be preparing and eating any meat dishes between now and the start of Pesach, I enlisted some help and moved all the meat dishes, utensils, appliances, etc., out to one of the shelves in the garage that we cleared off at the beginning of the week:

Tomorrow, I hope to start moving the milchig dishes out. If not, the slave labor college men will do that on Saturday night.

We did yet another sort of the items in the pantry. A few more things went into the donate and give away piles. A very few things will be added to the shelf of things that will be sold. And there are still a few things left -- we still have to eat over the next few days, after all:

But the cupboards are looking decidedly bare. This is a good thing four days before Pesach.

Pesach countdown -- 4 Days to Go, Part I

I really meant to share this sooner, but things always seem to intervene. We do have an overall plan for Pesach preparation. We got this calendar for Pesach prep years ago and refer to it every year even though we don't follow it exactly.

If you've been paying attention to this blog, you'll see that we have more-or-less followed the general plan even though the family is reduced in size (at least temporarily) and the "children" are all adults now.

Calendar for Pesach Preparation

We originally got this calendar from the school our daughter attended for Kindergarten. I'll present it first pretty much as we received it, then share my comments about this schedule.

Four Weeks Before:

--Do not buy or open new items like pickles, jams, flour, etc.
--Use up old stocks, especially refrigerated items.
--Look for and shop for Pesach staples that run out quickly, e.g., spices, ketchup, mayonnaise, preserves, oil, macaroons, grape juice, etc.
--Plan menus and shopping lists.

Three Weeks Before:

Order meat, wine, and any special candies.
Begin spring cleaning, starting with areas farthest from the kitchen, then ask family members not to take food into these rooms.

Two Weeks Before:

--Clean living room and dining room areas, then don't eat in them.
--Buy any dairy products that require certification and store them in the refrigerator in separate wrappers clearly marked for Pesach.
--Buy the rest of the Pesach supplies.
--Arrange to sell chametz.

Last Week:

The following schedule must be adjusted for Shabbat, with the work scheduled for the days before Shabbat being done one day earlier. B'dikat chametz is performed on the evening before the first seder.

Day 6:
Finish cleaning rest of house; prepare dishwasher.
Day 5:
Clean kitchen and change dishes.
Day 4:
Shop for fresh food - fruits, vegetables, fish, etc.
Day 3:
Cook for seder - baking, salads, dressings, etc.
Day 2:
Cook for seder - soup, meats, side dishes except last minute vegetables.
Perform B'dikat Chametz (the search for chametz) in the evening.
Day 1:
Eat no real matzah before the seder.
Burn chametz before noon.
Set table.
Last minute cooking.
Seder!

Our Reaction to This Schedule and How We Adapt It

Four weeks before, we start looking at what we have on our shelves. We do our best to use up everything we can before Pesach so that we don't have chametz in the house. We usually go through all our food storage areas and  prepare an inventory of food, which we then divide into something like the following categories:

-- Food to use up, discard, or give away.

-- Unopened food we won't use and can donate to a food pantry.

-- Unopened food that we will sell to a non-Jew for the duration of Pesach.

We plan our meals between Purim and Pesach as carefully as we can to use up as much of what we already have as possible. If it looks like we're going to end up with unopened packages of things like cereal, pasta, flour, we set those items aside for Project Mazon, which distributes the items to food pantries in our area. Since we often buy in bulk, we always end up with a certain amount of food (often frozen) that it would be a significant financial loss to replace. This food we sell to a non-Jew through our rabbi.

These days there are a plethora of kosher-for-Passover items available that replicate virtually everything one eats during the year. We don't buy these, as a rule, so shopping for hard-to-find items like kosher-for-Passover noodles or muffin mixes rarely enters the picture for us.  We do start buying kosher-for-Passover foods as much as a month before Pesach, mainly because we like to spread out the economic impact of changing all the food in the house as much as possible.

Three weeks before we do start a general scrubbing and cleaning throughout the house. We discourage everyone from carrying food out of the kitchen/dining area, but it is not yet forbidden. We need to do our final Pesach cleaning a little closer to the event because nothing will stay clean in our house for more than a day or so.

Our main activity at this point is determining what we're going to eat, who we're going to eat with, and what we want to do at the seder.

Two weeks before we start working toward the kitchen. The bedrooms are ruthlessly scrubbed, vacuumed, swept, polished, dusted. As we finish each room, we post a sign on the door so that we'll remember not to take in food.

The last week before Pesach we finish our shopping and cleaning. The areas we use most are left until the day public areas of the house, clearing out all the cabinets, and finishing our shopping. Any non-Pesachdik food in the house that has not been sold will be moved out to garage.

We will search the house for chametz sometime after it becomes dark, then start washing and putting away our Pesach dishes. We traditionally eat a very chametz-dik breakfast on the day of the first seder. If we're lucky, the weather is nice enough to have this meal outdoors. Afterwards, we clean up and burn the leftovers as well as the chametz we found on our search the night before.

Then we go in, finish changing the kitchen if necessary, pause to catch our breaths, and start cooking like mad.

What Other People Do to Prepare for Pesach

Many people we know make a corner of their kitchen kosher for Passover and prepare foods in advance. We don't do this for two reasons - I could never figure out just how to do this, and we like the idea of commemorating our Exodus from Egypt by our haste in having to prepare everything on the last day.

Pesach countdown -- 8 Days to Go

The big effort in preparing physically for Pesach involves removing chametz from the house. We attack this effort on two fronts --

1 -- Getting rid of the food that contains chametz, either by eating it, giving it away, or (in a very few cases) throwing it away.

2 -- Cleaning.

I've talked a little about the business of clearing out and using up the food, but tonight I'm going to spend just a little time talking about Pesach cleaning.

Pesach cleaning can be as rigorous as you like. Or as superficial as you like, though not everyone would agree with me about this. Here's the thing -- you can choose to clean every crevice in your home, shake out all the books just in case someone dropped a crumb of chametz and it got caught in the pages, vacuum your cars, scrub every surface, and so on. Or you can do a good general cleaning and rely on a couple of formulas for the rest. More about that in a few paragraphs.

First of all, we are commanded to remove the chametz, by cleaning, by using it up, by selling it, or by whatever other means we choose. After doing whatever cleaning is necessary for our peace of mind, we search for any chametz that we may have forgotten or overlooked in a ceremony known as bedikat chametz. Bedikat chametz is usually performed the night before the first seder. Here's how it's done:

Most people hide at least 10 pieces of chametz (bread, crackers, cookies, pasta, etc.) around the house so that they will be sure to find something on their search.

The lights are turned out and a candle is lit.

With a feather (or the lulav saved from Sukkot) and the lit candle, you go around the house and find the chametz -- not only that which was prepared and hidden, but any other chametz that you may have missed while cleaning up (it happens).

After your search, you recite the appropriate blessing and the first of two nullification formulas: All leaven and anything leavened that is in my possession, which I have neither seen nor removed, and about which I am unaware, shall be considered nullified and ownerless as the dust of the earth. 

This formula allows you to hold aside some chametz-dik foods to have early the next morning. My family is very fond of having donuts for our breakfast the day of the first seder.

In the morning, usually by around 10:0 a.m., you burn the chametz that was set aside the night before and say a second nullification formula: All leaven and anything leavened that is in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have observed it or not, whether I have removed it or not, shall be considered nullified and ownerless as the dust of the earth.

This process is somewhat simplified. For full information, you should check a traditional haggadah, a web site,
or instructions from your local rabbi or synagogue. But almost all of it is fun -- especially the search by candlelight at night and the fire in the morning.

I love the simplicity of the nullification formula. Assuming that you have made a sincere effort to remove your chametz, anything that you missed (for example, the little snack crackers that your cats knocked under the radiators and decide to fish out halfway through your seder) is now dust of the earth. It is not chametz because chametz is food and you don't eat dust of the earth. Dust is something that you sweep up and throw away.

Many years ago, I attended a class on Pesach cleaning taught by an Orthodox rabbi. He said something in that class that I have always held close to my heart while preparing for Pesach. He told us that "Dirt is not chametz." So I clean, but I don't make myself crazy worrying about every little microscopic speck that might or might not be chametz.

Not everyone feels the same way about cleaning and chametz. My belief is that Pesach gives us a chance to examine our lives -- not only the places in which we live and eat, but also the way in which we live. I do not believe that G-d wants us to make ourselves crazy while preparing our homes for Pesach. In my mind, shaking out the pages of the 10,000 or so books that we own to make sure that there are no crumbs lodged between the pages is .... uh, yeah, crazy. But opinions differ. Each person has to do what is right for their particular circumstances.

Okay, having said all that, we did accomplish something today that moves us toward being ready for Pesach in 8 days. We cleared off some shelves in the garage so that we have a place to move our regular dishes:

I think those cornstick pans were put out there last year and never brought back into the house. Other than that, we have 3 shelves ready to hold dishes and other kitchen paraphernalia.

Pesach countdown -- 12 Days to Go

Got the vacuum cleaner back today and finally got the first room cleaned up for Pesach. Almost. The bed still needs to be remade, but that's incidental.

This bedroom belongs to one of the college students who is living away from home, so it was relatively easy. Additionally, it allows me to address the question of "what about the animals?". This room was relatively easy because no one has been eating in here and I didn't have to worry too much about finding and getting rid of chametz. Even so, I did find a bit of questionable food stuff:

A bag of candy? Might be okay, might not. But since it's questionable, it gets tossed.

The question of the animals is much more complex. As you can see in the picture of this bedroom, a cat lives here. Two, actually, but the other was hiding. There is cat food, both canned food and a canister of dry food kept in this room and fed to the cats who live here. Is their food chametz-dik? Probably not the canned food, but the dry food contains barley, which is one of the five forbidden grains. So, what to do?

There are a variety of answers to this question. It can be argued that feeding your animals pet foods that contain chametz is a violation of Pesach because you benefit from owning the food. (I would definitely argue that not feeding your animals during Pesach can be detrimental, not only to their health but to yours. But not now.) So some people feed their animals a human-food diet during Pesach -- i.e., their pets eat pretty much the same way they do.

Some Pesach-dik pet foods are now on the market, so that's another option. And pet foods that contain kitniyot (things like corn meal instead of wheat) can be owned and fed to animals even though some Jews avoid eating kitniyot during Pesach.

We have tried a variety of these methods over the years we have shared our lives with companion animals. For most of the past 20 years, however, we have had at least one cat or dog who is eating a special diet. And, after talking with our veterinarians about the potential problems of changing a pet's diet for one week, we no longer make any changes to their diets.

Instead, we change the way in which we feed the animals. We move their food and change the location in which we prepare their food. We also feed them in a different location -- for example, outdoors for the dogs instead of indoors. And, just to add a bit of meaning to these changes, we sell the animals and all their paraphernalia for the 8 days of Pesach. We keep them and theirs in the house unless their new owner should come over and pick them up (hasn't happened so far), and we feed them because not to feed them would be cruel.

Pesach countdown -- 13 Days to Go

Wow, less than two weeks to the first seder. It's time to gear up the preparations. Unfortunately, our vacuum cleaner is in the shop being repaired so it's hard to do much vacuuming. So instead of cleaning, I am focusing on general clearing up and getting rid of food.

The food in the pantry is slowly but steadily diminishing:

And a few items have been added to the Pesach food shelf, now that the things I ordered online have arrived.

I'm going to have to make some more room soon -- my sons in California are going to do some Passover shopping there before they come home next week.

I have also been involved in some fun stuff. A few years ago, I got together with a few friends and we decided to form a Rosh Hodesh group. Rosh Hodesh is traditionally a women's holiday and, over the years, groups of Jewish women have chosen to meet monthly at the New Moon (aka Rosh Hodesh) and learn or celebrate or just connect with each other. Our group is in its third year and we're still trying new things.

This year, for Rosh Hodesh Nisan (the month in which Pesach occurs), we decided to have a Chocolate Seder. For the last couple of weeks, since finishing up the Purimshpiel, we have been running around buying up chocolate and writing our own "haggadah" for our Chocolate Seder. Last night, we got together to eat chocolate and have a good time.

That's a "goody plate" for one of our members who was sick last night. Most of the rest of the chocolate will either need to be eaten (what a hardship!) or given away to a deserving non-Jewish friend. The cacoa nibs, which we used for our maror, will be saved for use by my family after Pesach.

Pesach countdown -- 19 days to go!

About two and a half weeks left before the first seder and there's still so much to do. Up to this point, the focus has been primarily on food. And this may be an unnecessary digression, but I thought I would spend a few minutes just talking about why so we obsess about food while preparing for Pesach. (Some of this obsession is detailed in the post titled "What is this Chametz stuff anyway?" which should immediately follow -- or proceed this post.)

Here's what I wrote about the preparation process in the family's old web site:

We probably spend more time thinking about and preparing for Pesach than any other holiday in the Jewish year. There are a number of reasons for this, but we chose two to expound upon:

Everything is different. It's not until Pesach rolls around each year that we realize how much of our life revolves around preparing, eating, and cleaning up after food. We empty our cabinets, pantry, and refrigerator and re-stock them with Pesach dishes and supplies. Every time we get a glass of water or a piece of fruit, we are reminded that it is Pesach.

Pesach commemorates the events that made us a people. We spend two evenings each year talking about how we were slaves in Egypt and how G-d delivered us. Each of us, in every generation, is commanded to feel as if he or she personally was delivered from slavery and brought to freedom. Two nights are not enough, so we study beforehand to prepare ourselves for discussion, and the thoughts we digest afterwards often carry us well beyond the end of Pesach.

Pesach therefore requires both  physical preparation and spiritual or intellectual preparation. We clean our house from one end to the other, top to bottom, more thoroughly than at any other time of the year. We study the Haggadah so that when that first seder begins, we can add our thoughts to the discussion. We plan our meals carefully, and begin shopping.  We try to learn some new tunes each year and make sure that everyone is familiar with them so that we can sing together during our seder.

So, as far as the physical preparation, I've been sorting through food. I do this every year and end up with lists that look something like this (only scribbled in my handwriting instead of neatly typed):

Meat
11 hot dogs (freezer)
Brisket (garage freezer)
1 whole chicken (garage freezer)
1 pkg. Hamburger meat from kosher.com (garage freezer)
1 rib-eye steak (garage freezer)
ground turkey (freezer)
turkey cubes for stir-fry (freezer)
chicken thighs (freezer)
chicken breast cubes for stir-fry (freezer)

Could be kept if not used
4 things pesto (freezer -- plus 7 in garage freezer)
Dried chile peppers (freezer)
Chile powder (freezer)
2 lb. Butter (freezer)
4-3/4 lb. Earth Balance margarine (freezer)
Open jar Nescafe instant coffee (freezer)
Whole bag orange roughy fillets (freezer)
1 cup tomatoes from garden (freezer -- plus lots more in garage freezer)
Big bag frozen fruit -- Miriam's (freezer)
2+ bags blueberries (freezer)
4+ bags strawberries (freezer)
1 bag cranberries (freezer)
1 bag peaches (freezer -- plus 3 more in garage freezer)
GS cookies (garage freezer)
3 pkg. Paskesz cookies (Garage freezer)
1 bag salmon fillets (garage freezer)
2 pkg. Greens from CSA (garage freezer)
4 big, 1 small package yellow squash from garden (garage freezer)
Dog meat (garage freezer)
Frozen juice concentrate (garage freezer)
Green chiles (garage freezer)
6 containers homemade applesauce (garage freezer)
Juice boxes (both refrigerators)

Try to use up in meals or otherwise
1 pkg. Smart dogs (freezer)
2 Italian sausages (freezer -- plus 3 boxes in garage freezer)
2 pkg. Smart Ground Mexican style TVP crumbles (freezer)
1 bag Morningstar Farm crumbles (freezer)
3 pkg. Mon Cuisine stuffed cabbage -- meat (freezer)
4 pkg. Cohen's mini franks in puff pastry (freezer)
1 pkg. Other Cohen appetizers - meat (freezer)
Fudge ripple ice cream (2 more in garage freezer)
Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream
Mint chocolate chip ice cream (1 more in garage freezer)
Vanilla ice cream (garage freezer)
Ben & Jerry's half-baked ice cream
Maccabee mozzarella sticks -- toss (freezer)
Alexia mozzarella sticks --  (freezer)
Yeast -- probably toss (freezer)
Open pkg. Morningstar Farms Chik'n grillers (freezer - plus 1 pkg. in garage freezer)
1 bag chik'n strips -- (freezer)
1-1/2 boxes puff pastry (freezer)
Open bag salmon burgers -- 8 left (freezer)
Pinon nut barley bake (freezer)
1 pkg. Light Life fake sausage (fridge)
1 pkg. Light Life fake ham slices (fridge)
1 pizza shell -- Simon's (freezer)
Bag of chocolates -- (freezer)
Kong dog treat filled with peanut butter (freezer)
2 boxes chik'n nuggets (Garage freezer)
3 boxes Chik patties (garage freezer)
2 boxes Grillers prime (garage freezer)
1 box BBQ riblets (garage freezer)
1 box Garlic Naan (garage freezer)
3 big boxes Morningstar Farms sausages (Garage freezer)
2 jars enchilada sauce (garage fridge)
2 quarts zucchini soup (garage freezer)
1 quart broccoli soup (garage freezer)
1 quart cantelope-peach soup (garage freezer)
2 bags not-chicken soup (garage freezer)
2 salmon pieces (freezer)
2 pieces frozen cod (freezer)
Peanut butter cups -- (garage fridge)

Frozen Vegetables
Greens from CSA (garage fridge)
5 zucchini pie fillings plus 1 small filling (garage freezer)
1 pkg. French-style green beans (freezer)
2 bags frozen greens from CSA (freezer)
1 bag frozen broccoli from CSA (freezer)
2 bags store-bought broccoli (freezer)
2 pkg. Cas. Frms winter squash (freezer)
1 bag eggplant from CSA (Freezer)
1 bag frozen peas (freezer)
3 bags tater tots  (freezer)
1 bag frozen mixed vegetables  (freezer)
1 bag frozen cauliflower  (freezer)

Pesach-dik or could be used for Pesach
Eggs
Cheese (unopened only)
Elite chocolates (garage freezer)
Pesach spices, etc. (garage freezer)

From lists like these, I create menu plans to use up as much stuff as possible without buying any new ingredients. For example:

Monday 3/8 -- chicken for meat eaters with rice and mixed greens w/garlic; People's Choice for others
Tuesday 3/9 -- Broiled Tofu sandwiches
Wednesday 3/10 -- eggplant parmesan, salad
Thursday 3/11 -- pasta and seitan, garlic bread, salad
Friday 3/12 -- broccoli soup from freezer, winter squash souffle, salmon and/or cod, sweet & sour tofu
Saturday 3/13 -- enchiladas
Sunday 3/14 -- seitan and broccoli stir-fry, fried rice, salad
Monday 3/15 -- spaghetti with meatless crumbles
Tuesday 3/16 -- pinto beans with rice, chile rellenos casserole
Wednesday 3/17 -- cauliflower and cashew croquettes, green salad, peas
Thursday 3/18 -- southwest "beef" stew (uses up taco not-meat), cornbread, sald
Friday, 3/19 -- cantelope/peach soup from freezer, "sausage" and bow-tie pasta florentine, green beans
Saturday 3/20 -- enchiladas
Sunday 3/21 -- pinon nut barley bake, crustless broccoli & cottage cheese pie
Monday 3/22 -- possibly eggs ben davis (family name for an egg and cheese bagel with fake meat)
Tuesday 3/23 -- lentils & rice?
Wednesday 3/24 -- People's Choice for non-meat eaters; probably chicken from freezer for others
Thursday 3/25 -- broccoli and mushroom tart
Starting with the next meal, our college students will be home:
Friday 3/26 -- zucchini soup from freezer. small lasagne, tofu sticks
Saturday 3/27 -- enchiladas
Sunday 3/28 -- either cold sandwiches or eat out because
Monday 3/29 -- First Seder!!

Well, so far so good. Monday night, some of us did use up the unfrozen chicken and mixed greens and some rice. On Tuesday, no broiled tofu sandwiches because I should have put those down for a Sunday night when the person who really wants them will be home. Wednesday (tonight), I made a wonderful Eggplant Parmesan with organic eggplant that I got from our CSA last November and froze.

What is This Chametz Stuff Anyway?

This is an attempt to define chametz, at least as far as we use the term in our lives.

If one of the five species of grain (wheat, oats, rye, barley, spelt) comes into contact with water after the stalks have been cut off the ground, i.e., if they become fermented, they become chametz. According to our Rabbinic authorities, this fermentation takes 18 minutes. Therefore, in order to be kosher l'pesach, matzah must take less than 18 minutes to prepare from the time the water and flour are first mixed to the time the matzah comes out of the oven.

The term chametz (or sometimes, chametz-dik) is applied not only to foodstuffs, but also to dishes and utensils in which foods that are chametz have been prepared during the year.

Beans, rice, corn, and peas are not among the grains that can become chametz, but many Jews (especially those from Eastern Europe) avoid using them during Pesach. This prohibition stems from the fact that flour can be made from these foods and it might be confusing. The rabbis felt that people might be tempted to use regular flour if they were allowed to use, for example, rice flour. To avoid such confusion, the rabbis decided that these foods (known as kitniot) should not be used at all during Pesach.

In our household, removing chametz means getting out of our possession all flour, cereal, pasta, legumes, cookies, crackers, tofu and tofu products (soybeans are legumes!), rice and rice products, breads, brownie and pancake mixes, dry beans and peas, anything with corn sweeteners, baking powder, yeast, grain alcohol (not just the rum, the vanilla extract, too), popcorn, tortillas, and so on. It is a massive undertaking. We generally list all the food in the house and assign each item to one of the following categories:

Use up or discard

This is the first rough sort of the "use up or discard" pile. Things are here for a variety of reasons -- they are chametz (Oreos, oatmeal, Cheerios, Ritz crackers, Bisquick); they are not chametz but because the package is open we will not keep it over Pesach (taco shells); or, for whatever reason, we no longer want to give shelf space to these items. Most of these things will be given away to non-Jews who can use them and who don't care that the package is open or the expiration date on the can is a few months in the past.

Give away to a food pantry (applies almost exclusively to unopened packages of food)

Some of this food is definitely chametz, like the noodles. Some is kitniot, like the pinto beans. In both cases, these are unopened packages of food that have not passed their expiration date.

Sell for the duration of Pesach through a rabbinnical agreement called mechirat chametz.

Girl Scout cookies just arrived! No way am I going to give those to a food pantry, nor are we likely to eat them all in the next couple of weeks. Therefore, these cookies, along with a few other items will be put into our freezer or onto a special shelf and sold. The sale arrangements are generally made through our local rabbi, though there are a number of web sites where you can arrange for the sale of your chametz.

Girl Scout cookies are definitely chametz, but there are other food items that we will not be using during Pesach, but will sell and (if all goes as planned) buy back after Peach is over.

Most of these items are not chametz, but in order to be absolutely certain that there is not even the slightest bit of chametz that got mixed in during manufacturing, we tend to buy only items that are certified as kosher for passover or that are allowed to be used during Pesach without a specific kosher-for-passover certification. These food items will be stored through Pesach and used afterwards without problems.

As I said, we have only done a rough sort so far. There is still a mixture of items in all the food-storage places throughout the house. The refrigerator, for example:

Eggs are okay for Pesach, so any we don't use before then can be kept for use during Pesach. The open marinara sauce will probably get used up, but any that's left over will probably be tossed out. Salsa ... depends on how much is left. The wheat germ, however, is chametz and if we can't find someone who can use it, we will discard it. On the shelf shown on the right, the hamburger buns are use or lose. And the ice box cookie dough (wrapped up in waxed paper) will definitely be used before Pesach.

And this is how it goes all the way through the pantries and garage shelves and refrigerators and freezers and anywhere else we happen to store food. Top of the bookshelf in the back hall where we keep unopened bags of chips, anyone?

On a more spiritual note, chametz can also stand for other things in our lives that we would like to get rid of. Leaven symbolizes the impurity that causes grains to "puff up" and change. The removal of impurities in ourselves can keep us from "puffing up" and moving away from G-d.