Rabbi Michoel Green
Michoel Green is a native of California ordained in NY and has over 25 years experience in Jewish outreach and education. Author of several books, he currently directs the Chabad Center of Westborough, MA.While the Brits are struggling with their historic Brexit, we Jews are used to Brexiting already.
In fact, we experience it every year before Passover.
It's called Breadxit. All the bread must exit the house! No exceptions!
Some folks thinks this sounds crummy, but let me assure you that it can be crumby indeed.
While some might perceive complete withdrawal from leaven as insurmountable, it can actually be a piece of cake, quite literally.
Just make sure you eat the whole piece. There, you've effectively destroyed your chometz!
Good for you. You're on a roll. Now eat the roll.
Great! You're breadxiting like a pro.
We stubbornly close our borders to foreign intruders from the West and Yeast. We don't want their dough!
No more danishes for us. Let them go back to Denmark. And french toast can head back to France. We're not hungry for Hungary's Hungarian chometz either.
We want independence! If you try to bring in chometz, you'll be frisked and searched.
We're so zealous in our zeal to breadxit, we even ban legumes, kitniyot. I kid you not!
Don't like it? Lump it.
Too bad. That's just the way the cookie crumbles (and don't even THINK about bringing a cookie into our house, let alone crumbling it!)
Listen, it could be worse. Some Jews do gebroxit... (don't get me started)...like those chassidim from Russia.
Speaking of Russians, we're always Rushin' to get all that leaven out of our homes in time.
And then the next morning, we make sure to be Putin' all our chometz into the fire.
Sure, you can shelter your leavened assets by selling them to someone like Putin, but make sure to do it through a competent rabbi. Otherwise, you might be found guilty of collusion. We call it challah-usion.
Yup, Russian indeed, just like we were Rushin' to get out of Egypt in great haste. No time for dough to rise.
After centuries of slavery, we emerged from there with great wealth. Every Jew left with donkeys and Muellers laden with the gold and silver of Egypt.
So that's why we Barr the chometz from our house every year.
On the night before Pesach, we all become special counsel. That's right, we conduct a special investigation to find any last incriminating piece of chometz.
Any pasta found is promptly identified as an impasta. Cereals are apprehended like serial offenders. Crackers are confiscated as though they were crack cocaine. All violators are indicted and extradicted at once.
Woe to the leaven that trespasses our turf.
Forget about ICE. We'll go after chometz with a blow torch!
(That was hyperbolic. In most cases, a single candle will do just fine).
And just because our probe fails to yield evidence of leaven doesn't mean anyone is exonerated!
We'll continue to keep a watchful eye out for chometz for the next eight days. Anything found will be severely prosecuted!
We make a public disclaimer effectively disowning all chometz. That way, even if they find egregious chometz violations in my inner circle, it's NOT mine, but someone else's. I'm innocent.
I know this all sounds like fake news, but let me assure you it is not!
As unbelievable as it sounds, it's not fake, and it's not news either. We've been doing Breadxit for millennia. 3,330 years to be precise. (For instructions, click here.)
Nothing new about Pesach.
Except that every year, we endeavor to find new meaning and deeper significance in our annual Breadxit. So in fact, Pesach is always new and ever-relevant.
Each year at the seder, we recall the bitterness and tears of servitude, but also savor the joys of salvation. In the process, we emerge from inner bondage to personal liberation. So fill your cup with libation! Four times!
You deserve it. You survived Breadxit and special investigation and came out intact. So celebrate.
Remember, freedom Trumps everything on the Seder Night.
No need to kowtow to convention. You're the boss
Just stretch out and recline. (No need to put your feet up on the Oval table, though. And don't even dream about putting your feet on the seder table...they're chometzdik! That would be two giant steps backward after all the Breadxit you accomplished. You'd be indicted and impeached by the balabusta!)
Bottom line:
Don't pass over Passover! It's Huuuge!
But it's also humble. Hence the flat matzah.
So recline and enjoy your matzah with humility and inner reflection.
Experience the joys and oys of Pesach, the Breadxodus and the Exodus!
Wishing you and yours a happy, kosher, liberating and exonerating Passover season.