Pesach Watch Begins!

How Can You Tell When Pesach is Coming?  If you're thinking "Pesach is coming when the flowers begin to blossom" - nope, not in this age of Global Warming.  Flowers began doing their thing weeks ago.  And if you're thinking "Pesach is coming when the winds finally die down" - nope, the winds are still blowing.

Well, Abq Jew is here to tell you that Pesach is indeed coming!  How can he tell? 

Here are a few signs that Pesach is coming:

1.  The first Albuquerque sighting of Pesach food is reported.  This year, it was Congregation B'nai Israel reporting on February 27 that Pesach food had been sighted at the Sunflower at Lomas and San Mateo. That's before Purim and almost as early as the ShopRite in Livingston, New Jersey, which raises Abq's Pesachdikity a few points.

2.  The Mother Lode of Passover Food begins to congregate at the Smith's at Constituion and Carlisle, thanks to the efforts of Rabbi Arthur Flicker of Congregation B'nai Israel.

3.  Abq Jew opens up his Pesach Watch page.

4.  You wake up on Shushan Purim with a terrible headache.

5.  The hamentaschen that Whole Foods on Wyoming ordered for Pesach finally arrive.  (Abq Jew was there just before Purim; hamentaschen weren't; this was the explanation offered.  The Whole Foods on Carlisle did have hamentaschen - but only raspberry.  We gotta fix this next year - and visit Gourmet to Go and Dee's Cheesecake Factory.)

6.  There's a Kosher Wine Tasting in Santa Fe.  Whoopee!

7.  We set the clocks forward one hour, so we can start the Seder even later than ... we used to in the good ol' days, when there was at least a chance that Daylight Saving Time wouldn't begin until after Pesach.

Maftir.  The best sign that Pesach is coming?  It's when Mesifta Beth Shraga's Bedikas Chametz Kit arrives in the mail!

Haftorah.  What, you may ask, is a Bedikas Chometz (Search for Chometz) Kit?

Well.  First - you do know that all chometz (food products that just might contain even a smidgen of leaven or leavened bread) must be removed from your house and / or no longer owned by you, right?

So, after all the cleaning with blunt instruments has been completed, the night before the first Seder we get down to tachlis.  What do we need?

1. A candle - so we can see into every nook and cranny to make sure there's no chometz there.
2. A feather - so we can reach into every nook and cranny and eradicate any chometz.
3. A wooden spoon - so we've got something with which we can transfer the chometz we find.
4. A burnable bag -  so we've got something into which we can place the chometz we find before burning said chometz and bag the next morning.
5. A petek - with the right legal formulae (let's not call them prayers) to absolve us of all guilty ownership of any chometz we didn't see.

Viola!  Or another stringed instrument!  Here's your Bedikas Chometz Kit!

The petek traditionally has a couple slightly different versions of the statement

All chametz, leaven and leavened bread, that is in my possession which I have not seen, removed, or is unknown to me, should be annulled and considered ownerless like the dust of the earth.

Homemaker's Hint:  If you believe what you're saying - and you should - your efforts to clean the house before Pesach need not go beyond the reasonable and customary!

Which is to say, you don't have to drive yourself crazy.  Abq Jew knows - for some of us, we don't have to drive.  We can walk!   It's not that far ....