Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 23, 1991 TAG: 9104020209
SECTION: DAYS OF REVERENCE PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The holiday is still a week away, but the process of making the house kosher for Passover is in full swing to meet Friday's deadline.
The Brumberg household is one of probably only a handful in the Roanoke Valley that will go through the elaborate, stringent preparation.
"My husband says ours is the only house where Passover lasts three weeks," instead of just eight days, Brumberg said.
That's because it takes so long to fulfill the requirements for removing all traces of leavening from the house in accordance with scripture and tradition.
The biblical account of the Hebrews' Exodus from Egypt includes the admonition to remember the event by eating only unleavened bread for a period of one week after the celebration of the Passover, in which the first-born children of Egypt died but the children of Israel were spared.
In the Conservative branch of Judaism, to which Brumberg belongs, people approach the holiday in widely varying ways, says Jerome Fox, rabbi at Beth Israel Synagogue in Roanoke.
He encourages his fellow Jews to "do as much as is meaningful for you," in celebrating Passover, including at least one seder meal on the first or second night of the holiday.
Some will make no effort to remove leaven from their homes, while others will go to the extremes that Brumberg does each year, actually cleaning out every vestige of leavening - called hametz in Hebrew.
Even three weeks before Passover, Debbie Kaplan is watching the cupboards. "If we run out of cereal," forget replacing it, she said.
Cereals - since they can ferment and become leavened - are on the list of foods forbidden during the Passover observance. Other prohibited foods include leavened bread, cakes, biscuits, crackers, coffee substitutes made from grains, wheat, barley, oats, rye, millet or spelt, rice, peas, beans (except green beans), and liquids with ingredients made from grain alcohol, such as beer or whiskey.
In the strictest application, all such products would be removed from a kosher household, thus the requirement for the thorough cleaning and removal.
Even people who do not ordinarily maintain kosher kitchens, such as Ann Penn, will "make some recognition that this is a special time."
That observance might be restricted to the kitchen where bread would be removed and special Passover foods will be bought.
In Conservative and Orthodox Judaism, the Passover observance goes on for eight days; in the Reform tradition and in Israel, it lasts only seven.
Although the length and forms may vary, most Jews "observe to some degree," Penn said.
Few now go to the extremes Debbie Kaplan's mother-in-law used to - changing the wallpaper in the kitchen every year.
All the utensils and dishes that may have come in contact with leavened food must be thoroughly cleaned or replaced for the duration of Passover, said Julien Sacks, who with his wife, Genie, also goes to some lengths to make their house kosher for the holiday.
Many families have a completely different set of dishes and utensils used only on the holidays.
While the Passover dishes are in use, the ones they replaced can be hidden. This "legalistic fiction" of disposal is acceptable in most traditions.
The cleaning extends to every nook and cranny in the house, Genie Sacks explained, even to the extent of cleaning out a pocketbook and between the pages of a cookbook.
The Sackses have attempted a few times in recent years to get out of some of the work by traveling during Passover.
Last Passover they were in Israel, Julien Sacks said, where they worked as volunteers for the Israeli army. What assignment did they get? The job of making any army kitchen kosher - including the appliances.
Families who cannot or do not want to use up all their leavening can symbolically sell what they have to a non-Jew, then buy it back after Passover ends.
The cleanup ends on the night before Passover begins with the "bedikat hametz," or final search for leaven, Kaplan explained. By the light of a candle, the entire family moves through the house looking for strategically placed pieces of leavened bread, which are swept into a bag. The bag and its contents are then burned.
As is true with most Jewish holidays, food is an important element, valued not only for nutrition but for the symbolism it embodies.
The elaborate seder meal - observed on one or both of the first two nights of Passover - incorporates many such symbolic food elements.
There are bitter herbs to represent the bitterness of slavery that the ancient Hebrews suffered in Egypt.
There are greens representing spring dipped in salt water symbolic of the tears of slavery.
And there is the pervasive matzah.
The unleavened bread must be carefully made. Only 18 minutes are allowed between the first contact with water and flour - the only ingredients - and the baking in a superhot oven. It is rarely attempted at home, but is widely available in supermarkets even in areas with small Jewish communities.
The dry, cracker-like bread is eaten all week, but has a special place in the seder meal to represent the unleavened bread that the Hebrews are said to have made in their haste to leave Egypt with Moses.
Although this year many children will be out of school during Passover, the special foods that children usually take with them attract a lot of attention, Kaplan said.
The other kids usually "don't ask more than once to taste it," though, Brumberg said, since "there's nothing redeeming about it."
No matter how much trouble they go to, the women agreed, there is always complaining about the food. There is no eating out, and most processed foods are unacceptable.
There are, however, a large number of kosher-for-Passover items now available, Penn said, from ice cream and potato chips to toothbrushes and medicines.
Despite those modern-day conveniences, Penn's son still is liable to tell her sometime during the holiday that he hates Passover.
"I tell him, `You're not supposed to like it,' " she said, but to come to understand its meaning.
"In a child's eye, there is a level of suffering" in the inconveniences of food, Kaplan said, that may help him understand the greater significance of the holiday.
"Even complaining is part of the experience," Penn said.
Just getting together with other Jews who try to observe some degree of kosher preparation for the holiday can make people antsy.
"All this talking about the details is making me nervous," Kaplan said near the end of the group interview.
And the conversation had Brumberg smiling and dreaming aloud. "In the world to come, there will be a perfect kitchen with a separate section for Passover," and no need for the preparation she now endures.
by CNB