Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave IDF Chief Rabbi Avichai Ronsky the authority to sell the IDF’s chametz (leavened bread products) in a ceremony held on Monday.  Rabbi Ronsky will sell the army’s chametz to a non-Jew for the duration of the Passover holiday.

Barak expressed hope that the sale “will allow all IDF soldiers to celebrate the holiday in a kosher and happy way.”  He discussed his own reaction to the story of the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt, saying the main lesson of the story “is that to defend the freedom that was given to us on Passover, we must be able to overcome our external oppressors and internal urges.”