Hi! I notice your thread is getting resurrected now that we are all getting resurrected for Pesach.
SPRING CLEANING -- getting rid of residue yeast
I started cleaning my house from top to bottom last week. Every item is pulled off every shelf, dusted, wiped off (and organized as long as I'm at it). All the blinds are wiped down and the mouldings too. The floors are given an extra good scrubbing all the way to the teeny tiny corners. The refrigerator is cleaned inside and out. Even dresser and desk drawers are emptied and wiped down.
GETTING RID OF CHAMETZ (Yeast foods)
I am presently making it a point to eat all my stored up breads, crackers, and other yeast products (anything with corn syrup is considered chametz). A couple days before Pesach, I put all the yeast products I couldn't get rid of into the same cabinet, and shut it, and block it off with foil. I "sell it" to my next door neighbor for a quarter. Really. If she wanted to, she could come and take it. But she doesn't. She knows I'm doing this for Passover. You can sell your chametz online here:
Sell Your Chametz Online - Use this online form to sell your chametz for Passover. I also symbolically burn a cracker, just to keep in touch with with all the ways of doing thing.
The night before Passover I do a ritualized Final Search for Chametz. I take a candle for lighting, a feather to sweep the chametz, a spoon to remove it, and a paper back to put it in, and I search the entire house one last time. Usually I find nothing. But occasionally I'll find something I've overlooked. Like one year I found a bottle of cough syrup that had corn syrup in it.
MATZAH AND KASHRUT
Through the whole week of Passover, I don't eat any Chametz, but instead I eat matzah. Matzah is unleavened bread. It's like a thick cracker with no salt. The matzah and other foods have to be labeled "kosher for passover" if they are processed or be things like fresh fruits and veggies or milk.
SEDER MEALS
I participate in three Seder meals. The first night is at my home, which I do with a special gentleman friend from Synagogue. The second night I'll be attending a Seder meal at my Synagogue -- it will last until after midnight. The third night of Passover, my Catholic parish is also having a Seder. I am on the planning committee as the Jewish advisor, and I will be singing the brachot (blessings) during the meal.
The Seder Meal is a highly ritualized meal, in which different food represent different things from the Exodus story. For example, the bitter herbs represent the bitterness of slavery. Although it is a memorial, it is more than that -- it is worded in the present tense because one is supposed to be experiencing the Exodus for one's self as if one is actually there, a Jew, a slave, being freed by God's power and might.
If you want to participate in a Seder Meal and have never attended one yourself, I strongly strongly suggest that you find one to attend at a synagogue or church. They can be overwhelming even if you know what you are doing.
Blessings.
