I am familiar with the Jewish prohibition of work during certain hours, but what is chumatz? I'll look forward to googling it when I get to the office where I maintain my own perpetual prohibition of work.
"Perge modo et qua te ducit via dirige gressum," said Venus to Aeneas.
6 comments:
I think it means things with leavening in them.
Chumatz is all the foodstuffs in your house that are not Kosher for Passover.
Traditionally, one went around the house with a feather and a special candle to get rid of errant breadcrumbs, but this practice has been the cause of way too many pre-holiday fires. Nothing louses up a nice Seder like a smouldering ruin where your dining table once resided.
Does this help? Or did I make it worse?
"So what is chumatz? Any of the five grains (wheat, spelt, wheat's lesser-
known cousin, barley, oats, and rye) which have been allowed to get wet and
not baked into matzah within 18 minutes of becoming wet."
There, I saved you some time, mostly because I was too curious myself so I had to look it up. Happy Wednesday!
Chumatz (also chometz, transliteration isn't an exact science) is the term for any foods or household items that aren't kosher for passover. This means anything with leavened grain it in, anything that has had grains cooked in it...basically anything but matzah. It is traditional to "sell" all the chometz in a household to someone else for a small fee before the start of Passover and then buy it back when the week is over. This way you get around the religious obligation to rid yourself of all chometz during Passover without throwing out a bunch of otherwise perfectly edible food. At college, my housemates sold all of our chometz to a non-Jewish neighbor for $.05, so whoever is offering this service for $15 could be making a ton of money in an Orthodox community.
Well, I'm late to this post, so all the other smartypants Jews have given you more info than I ever could.
That said, I've never seen it spelled "chumatz" before.
Now look up "kitniyot" for extra credit.
Kitniyot, is any item made from or conataing Legumes. these would include beens, peas of all verieties, and any other seed born in a po, as well as corn, soybeans and it's deriverets, Rice, sessame seads and poppy seeds and mustard seeds. Ashkanazi jews (of eastern european tradition) avoid all of these and their derivitives. Safardic Jews (of north african and spanish traditions including most middel eastern jews do not have this prohabition.
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