The act of ridding one’s home of hametz (leaven) before Passover is based on a Torah law. The explanation of this act is found in Exodus: “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread [matzah], but on the previous day [before the holiday begins] you shall eliminate leaven [se’or] from your house because anyone who eats leaven, that soul will be cut off…” (12:15).
The first mishna of tractate “Pesach” (Passover) opens with this command: “At twilight of the 14th day of [the month of] Nisan, we search for leaven by the light of the lamp.”
Although neither source mentions it as a family activity, over the generations bedikat hametz (searching for leaven) has become a wonderful bonding opportunity for parents and children as we usher in the Passover holiday.
From the time I was seven years old, I had the honor of searching for hametz. Initially, it was with my grandfather Rav Tuvia Geffen of my hometown, Atlanta, Georgia, and afterwards with my father Louis. Later on, I had the privilege of collecting hametz with my children in America and Israel. Our family once had the fortunate opportunity for my parents to perform the search with their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren when they brought our entire family to Atlanta from Israel for the holiday.
Looking for images of bedikat hametz
Jumping ahead: I have a modern Haggadah from Mexico, published in Spanish in 1994 by Rabbi Marcelo Ritner and Rabbi Felipe Goodman. It contains an interesting drawing for bedikat hametz. A well-dressed, distinguished gentleman with a kippah on his head and a fancy mustache slides away on his knees on the floor from a kitchen cabinet after having completed his inspection. Pots are on top of the cabinet, and we can assume he checked them as well. In his hand, there is a magnifying glass so he can examine closely to see if there is any leavened substance that has remained in the cabinet.
I have also made personal searches for images in certain Haggadot, for example the National Bank Haggadah published in New York in 1920. It is a reprint of an image from the first American illustrated Haggadah, published in 1879.
The images in it were drawn by an artist called Senor. In it, a boy is holding a torch, and he and his father are searching for hametz. The history of that Haggadah is quite significant, as it was reprinted many times into the 1880s. There are several copies at the National Library, and also in my own possession.
I have also authored my own work, the American Heritage Haggadah, published in Jerusalem. In it is an image showing the father leading the search with his children. Although it is out of print, this Haggadah is available online. In fact, the Internet provides us with numerous depictions of Haggadot, which include, of course, images of the search for hametz.
A wonderful resource is Ktiv, The International Collection of Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts, a groundbreaking initiative by the National Library of Israel to enable global centralized digital access to all existing Hebrew manuscripts. The site is the largest online collection of Hebrew manuscripts in existence, and through it I was able to access a myriad of images of Haggadot that are housed in libraries around the world. Works like these help us learn what Jewish life was like “back then.”
Through Ktiv, I was able to view beautiful images of the 1478 Washington Haggadah, illuminated by the renowned 15th-century scribe and illustrator Joel ben Simon (also known as Feibush Ashkenazi), now housed in the Library of Congress. The bedikat hametz page is illuminated at the top with the word “Ohr” (light) in gold.
The scene at the bottom is truly a sketch of that period. Two figures, Jews in garb of the day, are closely involved in the ceremony. The one on the left is standing at a cupboard holding a candle in one hand, and a feather and a bowl in the other. The figure on the right is using a hand pump to blaze up a fire for burning the hametz. They are dressed in attire that, to me, evoke images of the medieval and Renaissance period movies I watched in my youth. I never thought of Jews dressing in that fashion, but why not? Jews were part of society and dressed accordingly.
Another Haggadah I was able to study online is from the Rosenthalia collection in Amsterdam. This unique one is the work of Yaakov Yehuda Leib, created in Hamburg in 1741. In the image of the search, the person performing the ritual is dressed in a very fashionable manner that represents a merger of Ashkenazi and Sephardi haberdashery.
AT THE National Library itself is a copy of the Prague Bohemian Haggadah from 1526. As one looks at the page, it is clear that the figure is carrying what is needed for the search for the leaven. We see a bearded Jewish man, dressed in the attire of that period, about to commence the search for leaven in his home. “For this specific purpose, he carries a candle in his right hand and, in his left, a feather with which to gather the crumbs, and a bowl to contain them.”
This image has been reprinted often over the past 500 years, so Jews around the world are familiar with it. Many have been fortunate this year to see the actual Haggadah on display at the National Library.
Another Haggadah at the National Library has an image for the search for leaven that I feel has a humorous element. This one was printed in Amsterdam in 1729 by the noted Proops printing house, which published many books in Hebrew. In the image, the father has a brush with which he is sweeping the hametz from the table into a bowl. Beneath the table is a little boy holding a candle. The ritual of using a candle, it seems, must be followed. The powerful black and white block printing of this image makes quite an impact.
One of the most important depictions of Jewish life in the 18th century is a book by French illustrator and engraver Bernard Picart, who worked in Amsterdam. This work, Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (“The ceremonies and religious customs of the various nations of the world”), beautifully documents the observance of Jewish rituals. House cleaning and the search for leaven is presented in a marvelous scene: The mother in her flowing dress leads the search at the table, sweeping up what is left of hametz crumbs while the men carry out searches of the floor and other areas – holding a candle and a feather, of course.
One of the most distinguished contemporary Haggadot is by famed artist Arthur Szyk. Irvin Ungar, the noted scholar of Szyk art rebirth in the last 25 years comments: “Most noted is the multi-generational approach to bedikat hametz observance with the seated grandfather (perhaps reflecting the generations of the past) while the father carries the lighted candle raised high with his son in search not only of hametz but of a brighter future.”
Whether I am seated or standing for the bedikat hametz this year, I will also be looking forward to a brighter future.
Chaplain David Geffen’s ‘bedikat hametz blitz’ at Fort Sill
In 1991, Chaplain David Zalis returned from his tour of duty in the Gulf War in Iraq and Bahrain. Taken on the MS Cunard Princess, a ship off the coast of Bahrain where the Passover Seder was observed, Zalis gave me a picture of bedikat hametz being held on the ship. It was quite a thrill for me to even know a few of the soldiers who performed the ritual, and the experience took me back to my own one as a chaplain.
When I reported for duty in September 1965 as the Jewish chaplain at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, I learned that my predecessor had been successful in persuading the office to supply the name of every new Jewish trainee. These soldiers were at Fort Sill for eight weeks of artillery training before being sent to Vietnam. With access to these names and their tent or cabin location, I sent them the monthly issue of the Fort’s chaplaincy publication Sillouette.
A month before Passover in 1966, I decided that every Jewish soldier at Fort Sill, about 300 to 350 of them, would receive a bedikat hametz kit with a candle, a small box to put the crumbs in, and a wooden spoon or a feather for collecting them. The first three items were easy to acquire, but what about the feather?
This was 1966, when many Native Americans still wore traditional dress (and, in fact, the Apache military leader Geronimo, was buried at the Fort Sill Indian Agency Cemetery). Therefore, I knew that there had to be a source for feathers.
I asked a few of the Jewish merchants in the town of Lawton, next to Fort Sill, if they might know a Native American who was a feather dealer. I received a few leads, and finally one worked! I visited the dealer on the Apache reservation and told him I wanted to buy 350 feathers. “Not possible,” he said. But I was persistent. We finally settled on 250 feathers, but I still was not sure that he could find enough.
My chaplain’s assistant acquired 250 candles from one of the assistants of the Christian chaplains (there were 25 Protestant and Catholic chaplains on base). We transliterated the blessings so that the important ritual could be performed by soldier-recipients, and we mimeographed the number of copies needed. We decided that the matchboxes could be used for collecting crumbs; and instead of kindling individual little fires outside, which could be dangerous and probably against regulations, we instructed them to throw the boxes in the trash, with no fire.
Two weeks before Passover, we went back to the feather dealer. He said that he was throwing in an extra 50, a total now of 300. I paid him and off we went with our treasures, now ready for packaging the bedikat hametz kits. My assistant and I had prepared mailing envelopes, with each soldier’s name and locale. (Imagine receiving such a kit without a donation request!) We stuffed the envelopes and brought them to the base’s internal post office.
I never asked how those who received the kit reacted. We did hear that a colonel, the only Jewish one of the five having that rank on base, received this feather package – to his great surprise. One of the 25 non-Jewish chaplains at Fort Sill received the kit by accident. He called me and said that now he could celebrate Passover, too. In short, the “bedikat hametz blitz” at Fort Sill had succeeded beyond all expectations.
