Pesach: The Mother of Invention for the Prevention of Chametz
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen March 23, 2010
Who’s stressed about cleaning for Pesach? Me, me! Yes, ladies, it’s that time of year when the impending festival brings out the inner balabusta in even the most latent of homemakers.
I know of women who spend weeks, and I mean actual weeks, preparing their homes to be chametz-free. Women — there may be men out there doing it too, but I haven’t encountered any — who clean out every closet long in advance, who diligently cover every kitchen surface with aluminum foil and whose couch cushions have long been free of crumbs.
Me, as the working mother of three children whose need for my assistance counter-intuitively seems to grow, not diminish, as they get older, I’m going to cram it all into two days when I have help at the end of this week. Karlene and I are going to be blurs of crevice-picking, surface-scrubbing, cabinet-cleaning, oven koshering, window washing, ceiling fan-blade cleaning efficiency. And, yes, I know that Passover prep does not require spring cleaning, but it seems as good a time as any to get it done.
Of course, I’m not as obsessed as my haredi friend T, who was telling me she “just” cleans out her china cabinet, polishes the silver and locks it up, putting away the key for Pesach so no one can get into the chametzdik piece of furniture. Her sister was critical because she was not only cleaning out her cabinets, but covering them up with opaque paper afterward so that no one should somehow be unclear that they were unfit for Passover use. I thought of her when I saw this Web site, which features every widget and aid the chumra-obsessed could possibly require.
Not only are there Pesach sink inserts and refrigerator shelf liners — these I’d seen before. You can also buy these little mitts to cover your sink knobs and faucets and cabinet handles. The label promises that they are guaranteed to be chametz-free. But the piece de resistance, in my (telephone) book are the plastic telephone and handset covers (available for purchase separately), designed to keep any sneaky chametz particles from touching your kosher-for-Pesach skin, I guess.
But even that may be surpassed by the “Bedikas Chometz Bread” package of 10 slices for the low, low price of just $1.49 — just in case you forget to set aside some of the regular bread you’ve been eating up until the day before Passover, to use in the ritual search for the last of the leaven.
Me? I’m going to wipe down the phone with a nice chemically cleaning wipe and leave it at that. My chametzdik cabinets will be cleaned out and then closed shut with masking tape as they are every year. My husband will shlep out the Pesach cooking and dining gear, we’ll put them in one cleaned out and lined dish cabinet and stuff everything else into the other, and close it with a little tape for good measure.
I’ll wait for next year to buy the latest and greatest Pesach innovation. That’s when I fully expect to find for sale a super-giant roll of plastic sheeting, designed to cover every surface in your kitchen in one ginormous shrink wrap.
This Passover may we all feel connected to the Exodus, and find liberation from all of our compulsions and anxieties.
What do you hope to be liberated from?
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
