Why “Average” Haredi Families Go to Hotels for Pesach, Part I

Thanks for the laugh!!!
Your very important lessson here is that we need to keep our sense of humor intact during the next few weeks.

This woman OBVIOUSLY doesn’t work outside the home.

I’m cracking up! This is very funny.
Would you like to know how I’ve prepared for Pesach so far? I went grocery shopping, got ticked off because they have already started stocking Pesach products when the holiday is still 3 weeks away, and angrily dumped every chometz product I could find into my shopping cart in rebellion. I spent $70 more than I usually do, and my cabinets and freezer are now filled with chometz. Take that, Malki Lowinger!

Fern, you never know when the chametz fairies might have dropped some crumbs on the window frames. And really, the glass might have some chametz molecules that might have broken down from some dust debris floating around (because, of course, dust is partly made up of some skin cells that drop off during the day- so maybe some fell off while you were eating a sandwich, so the dust might have some crumbs too- voila- that’s why you need to clean your windows for Pesach! Get crackin’!)

Seriously, this was great fisking and reference to Amelia Bedilia! (Strip the beds, Amelia…), MII. But more importantly, I’d like to see a Rav gently respond to this nonsense and set the record straight about what you need to do for Pesach and what’s nice to do for spring cleaning.

Abbi — Chametz fairies?! Say it ain’t so!!!!

I’m sorry but I have to say that you took the article out of context. I have a subscription to Mishpacha and I read it cover to cover every week. Each year they have a column geared to Pesach preparations. This years column includes a diary and some little notes about Pesach preparations. The diary may have been more down to earth. The column also includes a list of tasks to do. She tries to make it very down to earth although to some it may be somewhat commical. In past weeks she had already written about starting to clean out closets and cleaning the attic and basement. This magazine is geared towards charedim all over the world. Many people living abroad do have attics and basements so it isn’t so strange that she is writing this. If it doesn’t apply then adapt what she wrote to suit you. Maybe you have to clean your machsan rather than cleaning your basement.

Now that’s I’ve sounded like I’ve defended the writer, I must say how I truly feel. Usually these columns make me feel extremely guilty that I’m not keeping up with the schedule. I tend to be a very last minute person and I don’t deal well with stress. Last year, I tried hard to keep up with the good ideas given in that author’s column. I had a hard time because I was also working. This year I’m working and have a newborn. I’ve made my own schedule. I know from last year that trying to work according to someone else’s schedule just doesn’t work.

I don’t know how things are where everyone else lives but in my community, which isn’t charedi as I found out last year, many of the Israelis start cleaning way in advance. Don’t ask me what they’re doing. They finish about a week or so before Pesach. Then, when the whole family is off from school and maybe work, they go on vacation. This way they don’t have to take off vacation days at a different time in the year. They come back home for Pesach. I thought that it was an interesting way of doing things but certainly not what I was used to.

Different people do things differently and what suits one may not suit another. To each their own.

LOL. A number of people mentioned this post in comments on my post on the article, so I had to come check it out. I’m glad I did. It was great…
I don’t see how the de-stressers come into the picture. This article was more of a distresser. 😉

That’s exactly why I’m so scared, mom.

Great observactions, TrilCat.
I did a post on only beginning Pesach preparation today. Look, I may get around to washing the dust ruffles (none on the bunk beds anyway) but I know that halacha does not require it. Women add unnecessary stress with such spring cleaning standards being presented as standards required for Pesach. I remember many, many years ago (I can count the decades now) when I was in Israel for the year, I met a woman who wrote an article in which she listed a whole bunch of these things and kept saying “do it for Shavuous.”

And those people who think they are being extra machmir by leaving home altogether often err in the halacha. One is required to check that one’s home is free of chametz even if one is leaving as far as 30 days in advance. And the halacha is really about checking and clearing not organizing and cleaning.

Thanks for the advice.
Hope you don’t mind I linked to you- thanks!!

rachel, do you have little kids? i have a five year old, three year old and a baby. the baby we can trust but the other two we can’t. we had a rule like that. it was very very hard to keep. even though my hubby and i don’t bring any chametz upstairs, we somehow ended up with 4 cheerios in our room. it’s a good thing we cleaned and didn’t just assume everything was okay because we don’t bring chametz into our room. although you said you don’t need to clean your closet, my kids often sit on the bottom of my closet. if they happen to have some food on their clothes somewhere and it gets deposited there then we’ll end up with food in our closet. my kids love cheerios and that’s why it’s so hard for us. i’m not crazy. i don’t go nuts but i do clean where it’s very likely that there will be chametz based on what my family eats and where they eat it.

BB – that’s exactly why I vacuum/wash all the floors and make sure all the laundry is done.

If you look around while you’re washing the floors, you should catch any stray cheerios.

Clothes and bedclothes may have large, visible crumbs on them when you have a toddler (or a mom who has a particular thing for eating spaghetti in bed)

From doing floors and laundry to washing windows… is a whole different ball of wax. Unless you plan to lick the windows…in which case you may want to avoid that during pesach.

Laughing out loud, of course! But what are all you mamas doing on the Internet?? I don’t see that listed as a de-stressor… (if you have Vista, using the computer probably isn’t)

But wait! Isn’t the Internet trayfe year round anyway? Kal v’chomer, one shouldn’t sully one’s fingers or thoughts at Pesach time… :-)))

Thank you everyone for a great laugh! What a great way to start off the week! In my opinion it’s too early to be destressing/distressing over Pesach….so my remedy…out of site out of mind! For now, my head is in the sand! 🙂