Marsha's Reflections on Cleaning for Pesach
It's Wednesday, and I am in pretty good shape--or so I thought until I read some of the Pesach "cleaning tips" on this web page.
One thing is all too apparent. They are written by guys! Only a guy who never
cleans, would propose some of the cleaning suggestions in the articles on my Pesach web
page. Rolling up your carpets and selling them to a non-Jew because they might harbor
a crumb or two that vaccuuming and shampooing don't get out? Gimme a break! Where are
you supposed to PUT them? And I warn you strongly against the advice to clean a
continuous cleaning oven "like any other oven." I do in fact know of someone whose
continuous cleaning oven was destroyed when a well-meaning rabbi insisted on kashering
it with a blow torch!
BTW, this cluelessness to the practicalities of cleaning is not limited to "The Orthodox": take a look at the Rabbinical Assembly advice to "scrub" a self-cleaning oven before turning it to the Clean cycle! It's much easier to run the Clean cycle first, then clean out the resulting ashes as well as any items that didn't get cleaned by the self-clean process (taking care to follow manufacturer's instructions on how to do so without damaging the special finishes that make a self-cleaning oven what it is with harsh abrasives). Then run another Clean cycle.
According to My Teacher, a distinguished Orthodox rov and posek of the highest caliber (who shall remain nameless so as to avoid embarassing or tainting him on account of my more controversial views), the main issue when it comes to ovens and refrigirators is whether areas ever come in any contact with the food. If the area is one where the food won't touch it, cleaning and kashering is sufficient, and liners are not necessary. (What I always loved most about studying the laws of kashering for Pesach with My Teacher is that whenever someone asked him a question about which he wasn't sure of the answer, he wasn't embarrassed to say--"I'll have to ask my wife"!
For those of you who may be wallowing in despair at all you have not yet accomplished
yet in terms of home preparation, let me cheer you up with a quote from the reknowned Rabbi Avrohom Blumenkrantz's 1997 Pesach Digest of 1997, , p. 3.5:
The pressure of pre-Pesach cleaning has reached unnecessary and
overwhelming levels. The housewife often becomes overly nervous, unable to enjoy the
Simchas Yom Tov of
The reason for this is our burdensome attitude towards the cleaning for Pesach. This attitude stems from two reasons, Firstly, we do not differentiate between things we have to do and things we would like to do. Consider the many women who do not eat breakfast and will fast most of the day and nothing bothers them. But as soon as you tell them tomorrow is a fast day, they complain of headaches. [Note from Marsha: do ONLY women do this? ;-)]
Things we have to do according to Halacha is not much. Let us take for example cleaning the floors. All we really have to do is sweep the floors. Even the carpet, a good sweeping (or vacuuming) is sufficient for the Halachos of removing chometz from the house. The Halacha does not require washing or waxing the floors. It does not say anywhere that you have to shampoo the carpet. But we may, nevertheless, do all that, not because we have to, but because we want to do it. Another example. [Mom--are you reading this???]For Hilchos Pesach purposes there is no need to move away the refrigirator to see whether some bread crumbs or even pieces may be found underneath. No one would move the fridge on Pesach to go eat the bread that may be under there. According to Halacha, the bittul (nullifying) of the chometz is sufficient. Yet, we are probably going to move the fridge, not because we have to, but because we want to. When we realize we do things because we want to and not because we have to - our attitude will be different. Our mothers of yesterday approached the cleaning for Pesach with just such an attitude. They did it because they wanted to and not because they had to do it.
Another reason which helps create the tension amongst women is the fact that some women incorporate their general "spring cleaning" into their required pre-Pesach chores.
If we plan our cleaning for Pesach and we start off with things we have to do (which is not much) and defer those things we would like to do for 'when and if we have time,' the pre-Pesach cleaning will be approached differently and, who knows, maybe the women will even enjoy it.
So there you have it, folks--for better or worse, most of what the rabbis found on this page have been telling you to do is just because you WANT to do it, not because you have to, although most authors somehow "forget" to mention that. I wonder whether anyone "forgot" to mention it to poor Bubbie and the other "mothers of yesterday." Believe me, when men have to do Pesach cleaning, they remember REALLY FAST! ;-)
So, do what you gotta do, can do, want to do--with Rav Blumenkrantz as your source. Since it says in Pirkei Avot "Whoever reports a thing in the name of the person that said it brings redemption to the world" (VI:6), maybe Moshiach will come between now and whenever I get around to cleaning behind the refrigirator or shampooing the carpets. Let's hope so anyway!
Wishing you a happy and "as kosher (and as clean!) as you want it to be" Pesach...
Marsha B. Cohen, Pesach 5761
marshaco@yahoo.com