Windex— it’s all about happy Jews and Windex.
Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg a”h gave a yearly shiur about Pesach cleaning that became very famous; I used to go listen to it every year when we lived in Eretz Yisrael. His philosophy was that you could do all of your Pesach cleaning in a few hours. The stuff people make themselves crazy with has nothing to do with Pesach! You can close things off, you don’t have to clean your entire house — why make yourself crazy right before Pesach, when you’ll become resentful and fall asleep at the Seder?
I’d say we clean the house in two to three hours on the day of bedikas chometz. This sounds foreign, maybe even irresponsible, but we want to enjoy Yom Tov. We’re coming out of shi’abud Mitzrayim, we should love Pesach — and my kids do.
We have a large family, ka”h, and the kids are all very positive about Yiddishkeit and very shtark. My older kids come for Yom Tov, and I want us all to enjoy Pesach together and not be stressed out! Just take a Windex, shpritz it, it’s going to be fine. Give us a couple hours… it’ll be good.
A month before Pesach I switch to kitniyos snacks for the kids — rice cakes, bamba…. There’s a lot of nosh that’s kitniyos! This way, I can assume that any crumbs I later find on the floor or in toys are kitniyos. The toys that we will play with on Pesach I run through the washing machine, in a mesh bag or a pillowcase. Some years I had the kids clean them in the bathtub with toothbrushes. Some years my kids had more toys, some years less toys.
Create a free account to keep reading.
