At least three large-scale hametz-selling ceremonies were held on Passover Eve, and two of them went off without a hitch. The third held a reminder that Jerusalem may be sold as well.
This past Friday, the Chief Rabbis of Israel - Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yonah Metzger - officially sold the State's chametz to Hussein Ismail Jabbar, who has been participating in this ceremony for many years. The rabbis were authorized to make the sale by Finance Minister Roni Bar-On. Jabbar, of the Jerusalem corridor village of Abu Ghosh, paid an advance of 20,000 shekels, and officially took ownership of the State's leavened products.
The Torah forbids Jews from owning leavened products during the Passover holiday, and selling them is one way of ensuring that the law is not violated. The sale agreement specifies that if (and generally "when") the final details are not worked out by the end of the Passover holiday, the sale is annulled - though not retroactively.
The IDF's chametz was similarly sold by IDF Chief Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Avi Ronsky, to Col. (ret.) Nasser Aladdin Labaiv.
Third Sale: Jerusalem, Too?
A third such ceremony, less official but still tracked by thousands of Jews, was marred by two seemingly minor incidents, as Idan Yosef reported on the NFC Hebrew news site. The leading rabbis of the anti-Zionist Badatz hareidi-religious courts sold their chametz to Muhammed Nasolini, also of Abu Ghosh. Nasolini has been buying the Badatz chametz for decades, but this time he showed some impatience - as well as some nationalism.
Asked if he understood the exact terms of the deal, which were written in Hebrew, Nasolini became angered and said, "You can't teach me how to buy chametz! I've been doing this for years!"
When the acquisition was formalized by means of the traditional sudar cloth, Nasolini took the opportunity to put things into historic perspective: "You in the Badatz are worried about this cloth, but we [Arabs] are talking about Jerusalem! It used to be ours and you stole it. We care about Jerusalem and not about this cloth!"
Though Maimonides wrote, "Accept the truth from whoever states it," the Badatz members did not appear to take the Arab's words seriously, and merely laughed at his sudden burst of patriotism. Jews the world over do, however, continue to recite the verse in Psalms, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning" - even as negotiations over giving away the city's holiest parts take place between officials of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.