Immersed in Religious Tradition
They brought their pots, whisks, cheese graters, silver goblets, tea kettles and cutlery through the Pico-Robertson neighborhood in Los Angeles.
They transported the utensils by box, shopping cart, laundry basket, suitcase and stroller.
They dumped them into the vats of water steaming on portable burners set up in the inner walkway of their Orthodox synagogue, B’Nai David-Judea Congregation, to purify the kitchenware, then carted them back home to the drawers and cabinets they had scoured from top to bottom.
Kashering utensils is one of the lesser-known rituals of observant Jewish communities. It must be completed, as part of a symbolic purification of the home, before Passover, which begins Saturday night.
Janice MacMillan was there Tuesday afternoon, putting her silverware, trays, a whisk and measuring cups into a colander suspended in the simmering water. About a dozen people lined up behind her.
This largely urban, Orthodox neighborhood in West Los Angeles -- with several synagogues, kosher markets and shops -- was abuzz all week.
Shoppers swamped stores Thursday for last-minute kosher items made without flour or yeast, and families were busy cooking for the holiday in Los Angeles, home to the second-largest number of Jews in the U.S. after New York City.
This year, Passover preparations have to be completed by dusk today, because Orthodox tradition dictates that no work, driving, carrying or cooking can be done on Saturday, the Sabbath.
Families also conducted their searches for chametz, or leavened products, Thursday night instead of the day before Passover, as is tradition.
Finding the chametz is an exercise often done in families with young children to excite them about Passover.
Typically, 10 pieces of chametz are placed around the house. Talk is restricted to the search itself.
The Hassan family, for instance, planned to spend Thursday night searching by candlelight for 10 Cheerios hidden throughout the house by their youngest child, Natan, 16. He keeps note of where he’s put them -- usually one per room, alternating between obvious places such as atop a desk and more obscure spots.
Nick and Sharon Merkin planned to have their sons, Eytan, 5, and Yoni, 2, hunt by candlelight with a feather, candle and a wooden spoon to sweep up the hidden chametz bits. They usually use leftover bread, but this year they will use dried Chinese noodles.
Today they will bring those to burn in a bonfire outside the synagogue. The chametz symbolizes human faults and weaknesses, and removing it from the house in advance of Passover is seen as an act of purification. Says Natan, a high school sophomore, “It’s really a spiritual, nonphysical essence we’re trying to get rid of.”
The custom of kashering utensils at B’Nai David-Judea Synagogue on Pico Boulevard was started about eight years ago by Natan Hassan’s father, Amran Hassan, the temple’s executive director.
“You can do it at home, but you have to have a big pot,” Amran Hassan said. Now each year, the synagogue rents huge pots and gas burners and invites members to stop by with their kitchenware.
Some synagogues also have blowtorches on hand for cleaning pans, which under Orthodox law require a higher purification temperature than that of boiling water. Pans can also be kashered in a more modern way: in a self-cleaning oven.
“We are expunging from our pots and silverware the residue of the yearlong cooking and foods absorbed into the metal itself,” said Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky of B’Nai David-Judea.
On a more figurative level, he said, leavened products are considered “a symbol of arrogance and self-absorption. Leavened products have height, whereas matzo [eaten instead of bread during Passover ] is considered a symbol of humility.”
Most of the 250 families that make up the Orthodox congregation live within a few blocks of the synagogue, so they can easily walk there on the Sabbath.
Shoshana Schutzman was one of about a dozen synagogue members in line Tuesday afternoon for the kashering, holding a meat grinder and four beaters for her electric mixer in hand. She also brought about a dozen pots.
She started cleaning her house -- “everything, absolutely everything” -- about 3 1/2 weeks ago, she said. The responsibility for cleaning the family’s house falls entirely to her, she said. “Everybody is at work and school. It’s just me and the elbow grease.”
For the Hassans, however, cleaning is a family affair. Natan’s mother leaves him notes on the refrigerator each day, outlining his daily chores. The day he went with his father to kasher the pots, he was assigned to dust the piano and mantle and clean out the CD player in the kitchen to rid it of crumbs.
To avoid having to kasher each year, some families keep separate sets of utensils and cookware to be used only during Passover. Others go on vacation or go to friends’ or relatives’ houses for Seders on the first two nights of Passover.
Seder hosts were busy this week thinking up or putting the finishing touches on ways to make their Seder celebrations -- which commemorate the passing of the Jewish slaves from Egypt to freedom in Israel -- more unusual, more creative and more entertaining.
The Merkins, for example, e-mailed homework assignments to their 13 expected guests to participate and keep “the Seder rocking and rolling.”
Each guest must think of something funny to tell about what befalls them as they’re packing the family donkeys for the journey from Egypt to Israel. In the more serious one, they are to think of ways in which they or others around the world were still enslaved and in what ways they were more free.
One year, Kanefsky, his family’s Seder entertainment director, put at each place setting items that he had purchased at a discount store -- including a shower cap, a map of New York City, an alarm clock -- with each guest having to think of something that item would have been used for by the Jews as they were leaving Egypt. (For example, Kanefsky joked, the map of New York could have been used by the Jewish slaves who were hungry and needed to find a kosher steakhouse.)
Such light moments during the ceremony provide “comic relief at critical moments,” Kanefsky said.
This year, he plans to use the text of Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham,” in which Sam I Am is Moses and the other character is the Pharaoh. His wife, three sons and their guests will complete parts of a verse that begins:
“These Israelites, these Israelites,
I do not like these Israelites
Will you grant them human rights?
What say you on these Seder nights?”