Preparing for Pesach with Children: The B’Dikat Chametz Ritual

by Julie Zorn   

Passover or Pesach in Hebrew is coming, and this holiday is loaded with experiential traditions to engage children in. From plagues and dipping wine drops on a plate to creating the delicious Hillel sandwich and searching for the Afikomen, children are given many opportunities in a seder to get involved in the retelling of the story.

The seder aside, however, the preparation of the holiday is another way to get your tiniest household members excited to celebrate Pesach. Many people associate Passover with Spring cleaning, but the tradition really originated from getting rid of the chametz or unleavened bread out of the house.

The B’dikat Chametz ritual encourages us to search for even the smallest crumbs with the light of a candle. A feather is used as a miniature broom perfect to lift up hard-to-notice crumbs, and a wooden spoon is used as a dustpan. Typically, this ritual is performed the night preceding the first night seder as a symbolic way to ensure that the home has been rid of all unleavened bread. 

The way we lead up to a holiday drums up excitement and anticipation. The cleaning, the recipes, setting the table… all of these tasks are part of what makes the holiday feel special. After all, anything that takes such great care to require us to set aside time and demands our focus and planning certainly must be for something extraordinary. What a special message to teach to our children. A chag pesach sameach to each of you! May your holiday be filled with all of the joy and traditions you share with your loved ones.

If you were inspired by Rabbi Shmuly's message and are interested in his many books, visit his website at www.rabbishmuly.com to learn more!

Photo credit Dr. Dennis Glazer

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By Alla Haut - 03.23.2022

I would like to thank all of you who reached out to me and expressed your concerns about the devastating situation in Ukraine. I am grateful to those who called, emailed, texted or simply thought of the 44 million people in Ukraine who woke up on February 24, 2022 and realized that life as they knew it has ceased to exist.

It has been a month since the start of the war against Ukraine. The Ukrainians are putting up a courageous fight to defend their land and their people, and the world is paying attention. We hope that light will prevail over darkness, but no one knows how this will end. What could I possibly add to the vast ocean of information that is available to all of us in real time? I thought about sharing with you my perspective as someone who was born in Ukraine. It is not easy to share my private pain in a public forum, but I sense that I have found my voice, and I would like you to hear it.

For those of you who don’t know me, I was born in Kyiv, and in my late twenties came to the US as a political refugee, escaping persecution, not bombs. I grew up in the former Soviet Union where antisemitism was endorsed and sponsored by the government. The Soviet Union fell apart in 1992, and a short time after that I came to the US, so I don’t know much about what living in an independent Ukraine was like. I kept in contact with my close friends in Kyiv, but I didn’t have much interest in following the political changes that were taking hold in Ukraine and shaping the historical course for this young democracy.  America welcomed me with open arms, and my focus was here.

The double-take moment for me was when the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian people voted to elect Volodymir Zelensky, a Jew, to be their president. That marked the arrival of my delayed realization that Ukraine might have changed, and because of my post-Soviet indifference I almost missed it.  Why was I indifferent? I was still nursing my grievances about the Soviet antisemitic past, but I felt that it was time for soul-searching to explore the prospect of forgiveness. I could not change my past, but Ukraine’s present looked promising.  I was happy to see the changes taking shape in Ukraine’s political landscape, and I was excited for the county and its people. Living thousands of miles away from Ukraine and observing the democratic changes from afar, I could not feel completely at ease because I understood the geopolitical situation, the misalignment of power in the region and the fragility of the status quo. There was a premonition that something might happen to this young European democracy that would stifle its progress. I had an ever-present sense of foreboding.

I could not have imagined what was in store for Ukraine. I could not have ever foreseen the parallels between the present and the past that would become so evident to me through the prism of my family’s past.

As a child, I was deeply affected by the story of my grandmother which many of you have heard before. Today, I see history repeating itself, and my grandmother’s journey through war has acute relevance, and it deserves to be repeated again. In June of 1941, during the very early days of WWII, my grandfather gave his pregnant wife and his pregnant sister a case of mineral water, put them both on a freight train and sent them off to evacuation in Kazakhstan. These two women travelled together for days on an open platform of a railway car next to lumber logs. Nazi airplanes were frequently circling above the train, dropping bombs trying to blow up the bridges with the passing train. The train kept forging ahead leaving the craters from the bombs behind. Fast forward to 2022. I look at the current footage of bombings in Ukraine with Ukrainian women and children cramming into trains as they flee for safety, and I sob.

In 1944, the war was still raging, but Kyiv was already liberated, and my grandmother returned home with my almost 4-year-old mother. Home? My grandmother was walking the streets of her beloved city that was laying in ruins. She saw destruction everywhere. She walked in a daze – she could not find anyone she knew. Only later we learned about the 33,771 Jewish souls that perished at Babi Yar.  Fast forward 80 years to 2022. The signs of devastation in Ukraine are unimaginable. Babi Yar was bombed by Russian rockets, and a family of four who came to the mass grave to pay their respects before evacuating, was killed. Borys Romanchenko, a 96-year-old holocaust victim in Kharkiv who survived 3 concentration camps was killed by a Russian bomb hitting his home. I hear about this, and I weep.

In 1986 I was in Kyiv when we learned about a big fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. We did not know about the explosion; all we were told was that all available fire trucks were sent to help to put out a fire. This was right before our May holiday weekend, and we had plans to go out of town for a week. By luck we were not in Kyiv during the early days after the accident. When we returned home, information about the accident became public only thanks to the Western countries where high levels of radiation were detected. New details about the gravity of the situation were unfolding before our eyes every day. We did not know what would happen. Will there be more explosions? Was the fire already put out? How long will the smoldering reactor spew radioactive fumes? Will we all get radiation sickness? Today, in 2022, a famous Kyiv pediatrician, Dr. Komarovsky, instructs Ukrainian parents online of how much iodine to administer to their children depending on their age, in case Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons. An 11-year-old boy from Zaporizhia, a city that narrowly escaped a nuclear catastrophe, travelled alone through a war-torn country to Slovakia. The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was hit, and a projectile set on fire a part of the massive power plant, the largest in all of Europe.  It was a miracle that none of the 6 reactors ignited and exploded. Can you imagine being that woman who had to send her 11-year-old son on a treacherous journey all by himself because she could not leave her bed-ridden mother alone?  Picture yourself having to make that choice, and tell me if you are not wiping off your tears.

I am lucky to be writing this from the safety of my home, and not from a bomb shelter. I am lucky to be waking up to my phone’s alarm, and not to the piercing sounds of air raids. When I lived in Ukraine, I was an urbanite, a city dweller, and I took the Metro (subway) twice a day to go to school and work. I loved the Kyiv subway, its convenience and its architectural aesthetics. Not only were many stations beautifully adorned with granite, marble and chandeliers, they were also climate controlled and provided a cool respite during hot summer days and warmth during winter. Today, I see pictures of seniors, women with children, some with pets, hiding in the subway deep underground, and I know exactly which Metro stations those are and how long each escalator ride lasts to reach the train platforms. My heart aches for those families, for the tragic turn of events, for their lost sense of normalcy.   I am grieving with Ukraine for the lives already lost and for the lives that will be yet lost. I am grieving with Ukraine about the obliteration of homes, buildings, bridges, roads and beautiful parks, the destruction of dreams and plans people made, childhoods lost too soon and so much more.  It felt as if my own childhood and youth were bombed when I heard about a rocket hitting the Jewish cemetery – all 4 of my grandparents are buried there. My past was never carefree, but now even my memories can’t be. Era bygone…

I start and finish my days with the news from Ukraine, and I feel powerless. Every day I connect with my dearest friend in Kyiv who now lives at the school where she is a teacher. In the morning she teaches Zoom classes, as many children still remain in the city. In the afternoons, she goes to the school’s kitchen to cooks meals for civilians who organized to form the territorial defense forces. In the evenings, a group of her colleagues distributes those meals to the territorial defense units. I know my friend is powerful!

In one of his recent interviews with the press, President Zelensky was asked about what message he would like to share with the world. He said that he wished that every person for a brief time felt Ukrainian. He went on to say that if one would imagine themselves being Ukrainian even for a fleeting moment, they would want to help themselves in this dire situation.

I am asking each of you to close your eyes and imagine for a moment that you are Ukrainian. Be introspective and self-aware. You are experiencing by far the most difficult time of your life. You are pleading with the word for help, you are literally begging for assistance – humanitarian corridors, medical help, refugees support, military assistance – on land and in the skies. You are in a life-or-death situation, and your plea is existential. Remember, it’s is only an exercise for you, a work of your imagination, but for 44 million Ukrainians it is now their reality. Please think about them, and find it in your heart to give generously. There are many ways you can give, and please know that the gift of time is as valuable as monetary help.

Please find the time NOW to reach out to our Senators, the Chairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, etc., to the State Department, US Ambassador to the UN, or any other organizations you feel can have an impact. Ask them what you would like them to help you with if you were Ukrainian at this moment. Please do it today, as tomorrow may be too late.

If you can provide financial assistance, please choose organizations that either resonate with your personal values and interests, or the organizations capable of distributing the assistance most efficiently and expediently under the current conditions. Please do it NOW, as next week may be too late.

If we all do small things, they can lead to a large change in outcome, think “Butterfly Effect.” Let me finish with one of my favorite quotes from Pirkei Avot. ” You are not required to complete the task, but neither are you free to avoid it.” I want to thank each and every one of you for your acts of loving kindness.

Contact Links

Ohio Senators:

https://www.portman.senate.gov/form/email-rob and https://www.brown.senate.gov/contact/email

Senate Majority Leader: https://www.schumer.senate.gov/contact/email-chuck

US State Department: https://register.state.gov/contactus/contactusform and [email protected]

Chair of House Armed Services Committee: https://adamsmith.house.gov/contact

Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee: https://www.menendez.senate.gov/contact/email

US Ambassador to the UN: https://usun.usmission.gov/mission/contact-us/

You can contact our officials on Twitter and Instagram

Donation Links

Portal for humanitarian aid for those willing to send direct help to Ukraine, bypassing 3^rd party organizations and distributors. The website has a dashboard of needs and interactive map of humanitarian assistance provided to Ukraine to date

Since the beginning of the invasion, MSF teams have been working around the clock to respond to urgent medical humanitarian needs across Ukraine.

JDS is on the ground providing aid to those Jews remaining in Ukraine and those who have fled to the neighboring countries.

Follow the link in the article to access the list of the organizations.

* Reduced Price *

The Canton Jewish Community Federation is working with US Together, a Cleveland non-profit providing social services to support refugees in northeast Ohio. US Together has been sanctioned by the US Department of State to provide short and long term assistance to clients including housing, language skills, job training, health care, child care and mental health services. Stark County’s faith-based communities are joining efforts to support families and individuals during their resettlement. Please consider doing your part by donating the following items or sending a check payable to US Together Cleveland to: 

For more information: https://www.ustogether.us/cleveland-office

Hartville Gift and Thrift Shoppe will accept large furniture and household items during regular operating hours. 938 W. Maple St. Hartville, OH 44632 https://www.hartvillethriftshoppe.org

Canton Jewish Federation - smaller items, gift cards and checks: 430-30th Street, Canton, OH 44709. Accepting donations M-F (9:00AM-3:00PM) www.jewishcanton.org