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Sell your Hametz

"Sell" your Hametz

Prepare for Passover:  Perform the mitzvah that performs another mitzvah.

Hametz submissions due by Tuesday, April 4, 2023

In addition to the halacha (Jewish Law) that prohibits eating hametz (leaven) during Pesach, we are also forbidden halachically to own hametz or even to have it on our premises. Tradition provides a legal procedure whereby we can "sell" our hametz and, an hour after the end of the holiday, purchase it back (without an actual delivery or pick-up!). "Selling" implies full rights of ownership, with access.

Hametz (leaven) includes any food or drink that includes wheat, barley, oats, spelt or rye. Ashekanzic Jews add rice, millet, corn and legumes. Sephardic Jews include potatoes. Hametz comes in any form - even miniscule residue on pots, dishes, cutlery. 

Selling indicates full rights of ownership. 

I (we) the undersigned, fully empower and permit Rabbi Michael Rothbaum to act in my place and stead, and on my behalf, to sell all hametz possessed by me, knowingly or unknowingly, as defined by the Torah and Rabbinic Law (e.g. hametz, possible hametz, and all kinds of hametz mixtures), in addition to any hametz that may have hardened and adhered to inside surfaces of pans, pots, or cooking utensils, the utensils themselves, and all kinds of live animals and pets that have been eating hametz and mixtures thereof.      

This agreement shall be in effect from sundown, April 22, to sundown, April 30.
There is no fee. You make a charitable contribution (maot chittim), which will enable Pesach observance by someone who could not otherwise afford to celebrate.

 

Tue, October 21 2025 29 Tishrei 5786