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Dealing with Pesach starting after Shabbat

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For those who are interested or concerned by the fact that Pesach falls just after Shabbat this year the following describes how to deal with going kosher l’pesach under such circumstances.

Your house should go basically kosher l’pesach a day early – i.e. on the Friday. You search for any left-over chametz by candlelight on Thursday night and then do biur chametz, burning any left over chametz, on the Friday morning. You do not say the piece in Aramaic about cancelling your chametz (bitul chametz) on the Friday.

You can keep a small table in one room with 3 or 4 challot on it for use on Shabbat.

 

You make regular Kiddush with challot on Friday night on the small table and then go to the main table for your kosher l’pesach Friday night meal. On Shabbat morning you can also eat challah but only early in the morning. The last time for eating chametz on Shabbat in London is 10.45am. After this time you need to get rid of any last remnants of chametz in your house either by eating them or by flushing them down the toilet. Best thing is to try to get exactly the right amount of challah so that you will finish it

all.

You do bitul chametz, the formal renunciation of chametz, once you have really got rid of any last chametz at 11.54 am. This bitul can be done together in shul– you don’t need to be at home.

The last time for eating chametz beyond which there is a torah prohibition is around 1pm.

At Seudah Shlishit, tea time, you can eat matzah ashira – rich matzah which I guess is like egg matzah. It is made with no water - only fruit juice and egg and oil but you should definitely not eat real matzah on Shabbat.

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There is a positive side to all this – since you are not supposed to do any Pesach preparation on Shabbat you may find that you have a much more restful pre-Pesach than in normal years – entering the chag rested as opposed to frantic. Try to get everything ready before Shabbat and then get a well deserved snooze on Shabbat afternoon!

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Sale of Hametz

 

According to Jewish law, one must not have any hametz in his or her possession during Pesach.  To accomplish this, we use up as much hametz as possible before the festival, we thoroughly clean our home, we check our home for hametz and symbolically burn hametz we find, and we recite a formula declaring any hametz that has not been found to be nullified “as the dust of the earth”. Finally, we sell any hametz we wish to keep over the festival to a non-Jew so that it will not formally be in our possession.

 

Kol Nefesh members and friends are invited to sell their chametz via Rabbi Josh Wiener, rabbi of Adath Shalom, Paris. Here is a link to the online form, appointing Rabbi Weiner to act on your behalf in the sale of the hametz. The form should be submitted online by 8pm on April 10th.

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Services

Services are as normal, 9:45am on the 1st, 2nd , 7th and 8th days of Pesach, at our normal venue.

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Tefilat Tal (Prayer for Dew)

Listen here to this amazing rendition of this prayer sung by Ayala Gottlieb Alter and Yoav Oved, accompanied on the harp by Bonnie Scott.   This beautiful poem attributed to the 6th-century poet, Eleazar Kalir, pleads for the dew to come, and provide a successful harvest. Dew, as much as rain, was essential for the crop to grow.

The melody is composed by the modern British composer, Stephen Levey, to draw the  listener's imagination to the vast English countryside. The middle section is a short niggun (wordless melody), that Yoav introduced, to engage the congregants in participation and song. Together with the gorgeous venue provided by New London Synagogue, it was the perfect combination of serenity and spirituality. 

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