Preparing for Passover is always an exciting process, wherever one places oneself along the continuum of Jewish practice. Traditionally, in the weeks before Pesach, Jews carefully rid their homes of chametz, last year’s leavened bread and other prohibited foods, so that we neither eat nor possess them during the holiday week. This tradition is kept to varying degrees and in many ways: Some Jews physically remove all chametz by packing and storing the food in a basement, garage, or non-Jewish neighbor’s home, or making a symbolic “sale” of the items. Others donate these foods to a local food
cupboard or homeless shelter. In the process, pantries, cabinets and drawers are cleaned out, vacuumed, and restocked with Passover-friendly foods.

For families with small children, the effort to clear out the chametz can be a kind of “treasure hunt”, especially when the process culminates in the Bedikat Chametz ritual: on the night before the first seder, or early the next morning, after all the chametz has been removed from the home, a few piles or bags of crumbs are hidden around the house for the children to find. Armed with a candle (or flashlight, according to the age and safety concerns for the children participating), wooden spoon and feather, the children, the children sweep the crumbs into their spoons with their feathers. All materials are later burned outside, as the appropriate prayers are recited.

Chametz can also symbolize negative conditions of character or spirit, such as pride, greed and jealousy, hate, insensitivity, or indifference. And many Jews use the ritual of Bedikat Chametz as another opportunity (six months after after Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur) to conduct another “spiritual cleansing.”

Whether you choose to make a search for material – or spiritual – chametz in your life, I hope that knitting your own
tools for the search will be a productive part of the endeavor.

In response to significant interest in this project, these patterns are being made available before test-knitting is complete. The current version of this pattern is (1.01), April’09. Earlier versions may contain errors that have been corrected or instructions that have otherwise been revised. Please feel free to contact me with questions or concerns about the pattern, or to obtain a copy of the revised pattern if you purchased an earlier version and have not already received an update. Just send an email to: tikkunknits@yahoo.com.