Judaism 101
April 11, 2008
To Clean Or Not To Clean?
Maayan Jaffe
Staff Reporter
When you think of Passover, do you picture your mom in yellow gloves on hands and knees scrubbing the tiles with a toothbrush? Cleaning for Passover doesn’t have to be so arduous. You don’t need to get rid of dust; you need to get rid of chametz and se’or.
Chametz is food made of fermented grain. Se’or is non-edible sourdough that has the power to ferment other dough.
You need not get rid of garbage. Garbage is something that is incapable of fermenting dough and is so vile even a dog wouldn’t eat it.
You only have to get rid of chametz that is larger than one kezayit, about the size of a large olive. Therefore, in the bedroom, if you dropped a crumb in the closet –– though you should not have been eating in your room –– you don’t have to do more than vacuum. A crumb embedded in the carpet will constitute less than a kezayit.
There’s no need to discard deodorants, perfumes and other cosmetics containing chametz, unless they are liquids containing ethyl alcohol, which can be distilled into drinkable alcohol. (This is based on the opinion of the Orthodox sage Rabbi Moshe Feinstein.)
The main message: Clean well, but don’t tire yourself out so much that you don’t enjoy the seder.