Pesach Without the Pressure: Chani Levin

There are many ways to make Pesach. None of them have to involve tears, extreme fatigue, or a week of pizza bagels. In this column we’ll meet women with vastly different methods, but who all share the goal of reaching Pesach calmly and happily.

Name: Chani Levin*

From: Lakewood, NJ

Been making Pesach for: 11 years

Cleaning crew: Me and my big girls

Motto: On Seder night we will be ready just like everyone else, no matter how ahead someone else is now.

Approach: I work full time and b”H have a family who needs laundry and food even before Pesach, so I have to spread out the cleaning. I write lists and schedules and rewrite them as I go along.

I start by:

Organizing. I do this Tu B’Shvat time, because when I’m Pesach cleaning I just empty, wipe, and lock up. So I check the medicine cabinet for expired medicines, organize the linen closets…it’s not happening erev Pesach! I also start thinking about Pesach when I shop. Do I really need six bags of lokshen? From the beginning of Adar through Purim, I’m busy with Purim, so my real cleaning starts after Purim.

I start cleaning the places the kids can’t get to. I clean whenever I have a spare hour, working on my bedroom, or my freezer (even if I put chametz back in it, it’ll be easier to clean it erev Pesach).

I start the bedrooms on Rosh Chodesh Nissan. They take me about a week. I lock up most bedroom closets and drawers—this way, my husband doesn’t need to do bedikas chametz on them. The clean laundry just stays in laundry baskets over Pesach.

I spend the next week cleaning my kitchen and shopping. I don’t scrub my pots or oven—that black isn’t chametz. If it’s clean enough for me all year round, it’s clean enough for Pesach.