Seek & Destroy Your Evil Inclinations with a Candle, Feather & Wooden Spoon: Bedikat Chametz
'Twas the night before Passover, when all through the house
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The chametz was hidden by the elders with care,
in hopes that Elijah the Prophet soon would be there.
Searching for chemetz, even under the bed,
While visions of matzah danced in their head.
A candle, feather and wooden spoon, all for under two dollars,
Vat ay bargen for pervertables! Now subs, fetch me your collars.
(a KinkyJews original)
Karen Taylor and Laura Antoniou wrote in Avadim Chayanu:
Once We Were Slaves - A Seder for the Leather Community which is available at http://www.iron-rose.com/marketplace/images/Seder.abrv.pdf:
Chameitz is leavening. By the first night of Passover, a house should be rid of any products that contain leavening. This is related to the Talmudic restrictions that any product that is used to make bread products (or make bread products rise) must be removed from the house. Most obviously, these include all bread, cereals, and any alcohol that is made from grain.
Items must then be thrown away, given away, or sold. It is not kosher to simply ask someone to hold onto chameitz items until the festival is over; there must be a transaction, and the original owner must then pay to have the items returned, if wanted. Because Passover is a Jewish holiday, this gift or sale of items cannot take place with another Jew: the items must be given or sold to a person who is not Jewish, or who does not observe the Passover holiday.
This restriction is not just related to food - it is related to all items which touch chameitz. Stoves, sinks, refrigerators are cleaned. Most dishes, silverware, cooking utensils, even tablecloths and towels, are put away in a location that wont be accidentally accessed (usually a garage, basement, or locked cabinet) and kosher for Passover items replace them for 8 days. Cleaning closets, pockets of coats, car floors, any place where food crumbs might be, are included in this rigorous cleaning.
Milechai.com (http://www.milechai.com/text2/bedikat-chametz-kits.html) provides a bit more detail as to the ritual of searching for chametz.
Their website says:
The Mitzvah
Bedikat chametz is done the night before Pesach, Nissan 14 immediately after nightfall.
If it is too difficult to search the whole house on one night the search can be started earlier according to the laws of bedikat chametz. However, the blessing is only said on the night of the 14th.
THE BLESSING
Before the search the blessing of 'al biur chametz' is recited as found in the Haggadah or Siddur. From the time the blessing is said until the after the search one should not say anything not relevant to the search.
When there is more than one building to search, one blessing suffices. One person says the blessing for all the searchers, they listen to the blessing and say "amen." Then they split up and search the different buildings.
THE DECLARATION
Any chametz not found during the search is declared null and ownerless (hefker): "All chametz, leaven and leavened bread, that is in my possession which I have not seen, removed or is unknown to me, should be annulled and considered ownerless like the dust of the earth." This declaration is traditionally said in Aramaic as found in the Haggadah or Siddur. However, one who doesn't understand Aramaic must say it in a language he understands.
THE SEARCH
The search should be conducted by the light of a candle, in order to look in all the nooks and crannies. If the candle might cause damage, such as a carpeted area, one may use a flashlight.
It is preferable that the owner of the property conduct the search himself. Nevertheless, he may appoint someone else to search on his behalf.
Any place chametz might have been put during the year must be searched. Therefore, one must also check one's pockets.
There is a custom that ten pieces of chametz are "planted" in the rooms to be searched. If you hide ten and find nine, just keep searching! The ten pieces remind us of the ten plagues.
NULLIFICATION AND BURNING
The following morning, it is forbidden to eat chametz after the fourth hour. One may continue to derive other benefit from the chametz until the end of the fifth hour. Before this time, the chametz must be burned and again nullified. Since the times vary from city to city, an Orthodox rabbi should be consulted for the exact times in your area.
The second nullification is: "All chametz, leaven and leavened bread, that is in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have removed it or not, should be annulled and considered ownerless like the dust of the earth."
Chametz is symbolic of the "evil inclination" which we "seek and destroy."
Now Im sure you can think of other things you can do with the candle (wax play), feather (tease and denial) and wooden spoon (percussion play). Get creative with your pre-Passover cleaning. Perhaps have your sub dress up special for you in a French maids uniform or simply go naked and clean the house of non-Kosher for Passover items. Make the searching for chametz like the searching for the affikomen with a special prize going to your guest who finds the most hidden pieces of chametz.
Taylor and Antoniou provide some BDSM alternative practices that can be followed in preparation for the holiday of Passover. They wrote:
While this ritual [of bedikat chametz] may appear to bring on nothing but exhaustion, it can also help us fully prepare for the Passover festival. For eight days we will put away our normal routines, and do something different. It brings a very experiential moment of harshness, and a time to see how much we normally have in our lives. Perhaps then, at the end of the Festival, when we return to the familiar, it may also be transformed for us.
Transforming this chore may be the first chance to examine our identities both as SMers and as Jews. No one celebrating this festival should be uninvolved in the preparation for it, and that includes the cleaning and the removal of chameitz from a house. Even if a top normally does not do housework, the injunction to participate as though you were relating your own experience as a slave takes precedence in this once-a-year event. Working alongside any slaves in the household, the owner or owners are beginning their journey to the seder table.
Personal Chameitz. Chameitz is leavening, the thing that puffs us up. This includes a putting away of our normal routine, and to prepare a time to experience a taste of freedom. The keeping of a slave is chameitz, and so a slave may be freed prior to the Passover ritual. Commentary makes it very clear that Jewish slaves are not permitted to participate in the Passover seder. All items that identify the relationship as one that is chameitz should be removed. This should not be considered negative; but as a chance to renew. Free people sit at the table together - and determine their future as they examine their past.
Bedikat Chameitz (searching for Chameitz)
The day before Passover begins, your house should be pretty ready to go. The night before the first seder, a ritual search must then begin in what should be a mostly symbolic search for the last components of chameitz. Many families deliberately hide a few pieces of bread around the house for children to locate so that the final rituals can be observed. We recommend taking this time to remove the final marks of that as well: the items that mark someone as a slave. As all other items that represent the use of chameitz are removed, so should those items that mark a slave be removed ritually. These are chameitz items, like non-kosher pots and pans, which could then be removed to a place where they are not accidentally seen (or used) during the 8-day festival. This ritual act should be clearly understood by all parties, and offer an opportunity to consider one of the following activities:
- putting the items that mark slavery away for 8 days in a locked cabinet
- give the items into the safekeeping of a (non-Jewish) friend who understands the value of your SM relationship
- give the items away in order to fully experience the opportunity to move from slavery to freedom. When the festival is over, purchase new items to mark the start of a new cycle in your relationship
Following the removal of this relationship aspect, prepare for the final search through the house with the following blessing:
(Hebrew) Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech haolam asher kidshanu bmitzvotav vtzivanu al biur chameitz.
Blessed is the Spirit of the World who makes us holy with mitzvot
and commands us to burn chameitz.
The final search must be conducted using a candle (for light), a feather (to brush the crumbs), and a wooden spoon (to collect the crumbs for burning). The crumbs are then ritually burned. We recommend that the slave, bottom, or the submissive partner in the
relationship be the one who performs the ritual or says the blessing, as the first
act of a free person in the household.
The following is a poem by Hannah Senesh that can be recited at this time:
Blessed is the match/consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame/that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.
Blessed is the heart/with strength to stop its beating for honors sake.
Blessed is the match/consumed in kindling flame.
After collection, the following formula is said:
Kol chaimira vachamia dika virshuti
Dachamitei udla chamitei.
Dviartei udla viartei.
Libateil vlehevei hefker kafra dara.
Every sort of chameitz in my possession, which I have seen or not seen,
destroyed or not destroyed, let it be null and void,
ownerless, like the dust of the earth.
If the Search for chameitz is included in a communal setting, we recommend the following invocation, each line read by a different reader:
Reader:
Why is this night different from all other nights?
Reader:
On this night, we gather together to prepare for Passover, joining together
as a community to rid ourselves of a different kind of chameitz.
Reader:
What do we cleanse ourselves of tonight?
Alternating readers:
The exhaustion of cleaning and cooking.
The feeling of being the only sadomasochist among Jews;
the only Jew among sadomasochists
The pressure to conform to one image of what
our relationships should look like.
The lingering belief that this tradition doesnt belong to
people who are in dominant/submissive relationships,
who use terms like Owner, slave, Master or Mistress.
The fear that all power is corrupt, and that all surrender is craven.
All:
Let us gather all this together like crumbs. Like we are ready to burn.
Let us enter into this Passover season as if we could cleanse ourselves of all
that is false, all that is harmful, all that is hateful, all that is fearful..
As if God had forever delighted in Gods image in each and every one of us.
As if freedom had been ours, always, fully like an open sea.
Kol chamira vachamia
Libateil vlehevei hefkeir kafra dara.
Every sort of chameitz;
Let it be null and void, ownerless, like the dust of the earth.
Well end on a lighter note with the lyrics to the song Bedikat Chametz by Shlock Rock which is available at http://www.shlockrock.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=32&L=178#lyric:
Oh where oh where has my chametz gone oh where oh where can it be,
My Ima has cleaned so carefully, oh where oh where can it be.
Oh where oh where has my chametz gone oh where oh where can it be,
With a candle and feather we search every room, oh where oh where can it be.
Oh where oh where has my chametz gone oh where oh where can it be,
Pesach is coming so chametz we burn oh where oh where can it be.
Oh where oh where has my chametz gone oh where oh where can it be,
Pesach is here only matzoh we'll eat, no more chametz for me.
Happy Passover!
'Twas the night before Passover, when all through the house
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The chametz was hidden by the elders with care,
in hopes that Elijah the Prophet soon would be there.
Searching for chemetz, even under the bed,
While visions of matzah danced in their head.
A candle, feather and wooden spoon, all for under two dollars,
Vat ay bargen for pervertables! Now subs, fetch me your collars.
(a KinkyJews original)
Karen Taylor and Laura Antoniou wrote in Avadim Chayanu:
Once We Were Slaves - A Seder for the Leather Community which is available at http://www.iron-rose.com/marketplace/images/Seder.abrv.pdf:
Chameitz is leavening. By the first night of Passover, a house should be rid of any products that contain leavening. This is related to the Talmudic restrictions that any product that is used to make bread products (or make bread products rise) must be removed from the house. Most obviously, these include all bread, cereals, and any alcohol that is made from grain.
Items must then be thrown away, given away, or sold. It is not kosher to simply ask someone to hold onto chameitz items until the festival is over; there must be a transaction, and the original owner must then pay to have the items returned, if wanted. Because Passover is a Jewish holiday, this gift or sale of items cannot take place with another Jew: the items must be given or sold to a person who is not Jewish, or who does not observe the Passover holiday.
This restriction is not just related to food - it is related to all items which touch chameitz. Stoves, sinks, refrigerators are cleaned. Most dishes, silverware, cooking utensils, even tablecloths and towels, are put away in a location that wont be accidentally accessed (usually a garage, basement, or locked cabinet) and kosher for Passover items replace them for 8 days. Cleaning closets, pockets of coats, car floors, any place where food crumbs might be, are included in this rigorous cleaning.
Milechai.com (http://www.milechai.com/text2/bedikat-chametz-kits.html) provides a bit more detail as to the ritual of searching for chametz.
Their website says:
The Mitzvah
Bedikat chametz is done the night before Pesach, Nissan 14 immediately after nightfall.
If it is too difficult to search the whole house on one night the search can be started earlier according to the laws of bedikat chametz. However, the blessing is only said on the night of the 14th.
THE BLESSING
Before the search the blessing of 'al biur chametz' is recited as found in the Haggadah or Siddur. From the time the blessing is said until the after the search one should not say anything not relevant to the search.
When there is more than one building to search, one blessing suffices. One person says the blessing for all the searchers, they listen to the blessing and say "amen." Then they split up and search the different buildings.
THE DECLARATION
Any chametz not found during the search is declared null and ownerless (hefker): "All chametz, leaven and leavened bread, that is in my possession which I have not seen, removed or is unknown to me, should be annulled and considered ownerless like the dust of the earth." This declaration is traditionally said in Aramaic as found in the Haggadah or Siddur. However, one who doesn't understand Aramaic must say it in a language he understands.
THE SEARCH
The search should be conducted by the light of a candle, in order to look in all the nooks and crannies. If the candle might cause damage, such as a carpeted area, one may use a flashlight.
It is preferable that the owner of the property conduct the search himself. Nevertheless, he may appoint someone else to search on his behalf.
Any place chametz might have been put during the year must be searched. Therefore, one must also check one's pockets.
There is a custom that ten pieces of chametz are "planted" in the rooms to be searched. If you hide ten and find nine, just keep searching! The ten pieces remind us of the ten plagues.
NULLIFICATION AND BURNING
The following morning, it is forbidden to eat chametz after the fourth hour. One may continue to derive other benefit from the chametz until the end of the fifth hour. Before this time, the chametz must be burned and again nullified. Since the times vary from city to city, an Orthodox rabbi should be consulted for the exact times in your area.
The second nullification is: "All chametz, leaven and leavened bread, that is in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have removed it or not, should be annulled and considered ownerless like the dust of the earth."
Chametz is symbolic of the "evil inclination" which we "seek and destroy."
Now Im sure you can think of other things you can do with the candle (wax play), feather (tease and denial) and wooden spoon (percussion play). Get creative with your pre-Passover cleaning. Perhaps have your sub dress up special for you in a French maids uniform or simply go naked and clean the house of non-Kosher for Passover items. Make the searching for chametz like the searching for the affikomen with a special prize going to your guest who finds the most hidden pieces of chametz.
Taylor and Antoniou provide some BDSM alternative practices that can be followed in preparation for the holiday of Passover. They wrote:
While this ritual [of bedikat chametz] may appear to bring on nothing but exhaustion, it can also help us fully prepare for the Passover festival. For eight days we will put away our normal routines, and do something different. It brings a very experiential moment of harshness, and a time to see how much we normally have in our lives. Perhaps then, at the end of the Festival, when we return to the familiar, it may also be transformed for us.
Transforming this chore may be the first chance to examine our identities both as SMers and as Jews. No one celebrating this festival should be uninvolved in the preparation for it, and that includes the cleaning and the removal of chameitz from a house. Even if a top normally does not do housework, the injunction to participate as though you were relating your own experience as a slave takes precedence in this once-a-year event. Working alongside any slaves in the household, the owner or owners are beginning their journey to the seder table.
Personal Chameitz. Chameitz is leavening, the thing that puffs us up. This includes a putting away of our normal routine, and to prepare a time to experience a taste of freedom. The keeping of a slave is chameitz, and so a slave may be freed prior to the Passover ritual. Commentary makes it very clear that Jewish slaves are not permitted to participate in the Passover seder. All items that identify the relationship as one that is chameitz should be removed. This should not be considered negative; but as a chance to renew. Free people sit at the table together - and determine their future as they examine their past.
Bedikat Chameitz (searching for Chameitz)
The day before Passover begins, your house should be pretty ready to go. The night before the first seder, a ritual search must then begin in what should be a mostly symbolic search for the last components of chameitz. Many families deliberately hide a few pieces of bread around the house for children to locate so that the final rituals can be observed. We recommend taking this time to remove the final marks of that as well: the items that mark someone as a slave. As all other items that represent the use of chameitz are removed, so should those items that mark a slave be removed ritually. These are chameitz items, like non-kosher pots and pans, which could then be removed to a place where they are not accidentally seen (or used) during the 8-day festival. This ritual act should be clearly understood by all parties, and offer an opportunity to consider one of the following activities:
- putting the items that mark slavery away for 8 days in a locked cabinet
- give the items into the safekeeping of a (non-Jewish) friend who understands the value of your SM relationship
- give the items away in order to fully experience the opportunity to move from slavery to freedom. When the festival is over, purchase new items to mark the start of a new cycle in your relationship
Following the removal of this relationship aspect, prepare for the final search through the house with the following blessing:
(Hebrew) Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech haolam asher kidshanu bmitzvotav vtzivanu al biur chameitz.
Blessed is the Spirit of the World who makes us holy with mitzvot
and commands us to burn chameitz.
The final search must be conducted using a candle (for light), a feather (to brush the crumbs), and a wooden spoon (to collect the crumbs for burning). The crumbs are then ritually burned. We recommend that the slave, bottom, or the submissive partner in the
relationship be the one who performs the ritual or says the blessing, as the first
act of a free person in the household.
The following is a poem by Hannah Senesh that can be recited at this time:
Blessed is the match/consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame/that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.
Blessed is the heart/with strength to stop its beating for honors sake.
Blessed is the match/consumed in kindling flame.
After collection, the following formula is said:
Kol chaimira vachamia dika virshuti
Dachamitei udla chamitei.
Dviartei udla viartei.
Libateil vlehevei hefker kafra dara.
Every sort of chameitz in my possession, which I have seen or not seen,
destroyed or not destroyed, let it be null and void,
ownerless, like the dust of the earth.
If the Search for chameitz is included in a communal setting, we recommend the following invocation, each line read by a different reader:
Reader:
Why is this night different from all other nights?
Reader:
On this night, we gather together to prepare for Passover, joining together
as a community to rid ourselves of a different kind of chameitz.
Reader:
What do we cleanse ourselves of tonight?
Alternating readers:
The exhaustion of cleaning and cooking.
The feeling of being the only sadomasochist among Jews;
the only Jew among sadomasochists
The pressure to conform to one image of what
our relationships should look like.
The lingering belief that this tradition doesnt belong to
people who are in dominant/submissive relationships,
who use terms like Owner, slave, Master or Mistress.
The fear that all power is corrupt, and that all surrender is craven.
All:
Let us gather all this together like crumbs. Like we are ready to burn.
Let us enter into this Passover season as if we could cleanse ourselves of all
that is false, all that is harmful, all that is hateful, all that is fearful..
As if God had forever delighted in Gods image in each and every one of us.
As if freedom had been ours, always, fully like an open sea.
Kol chamira vachamia
Libateil vlehevei hefkeir kafra dara.
Every sort of chameitz;
Let it be null and void, ownerless, like the dust of the earth.
Well end on a lighter note with the lyrics to the song Bedikat Chametz by Shlock Rock which is available at http://www.shlockrock.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=32&L=178#lyric:
Oh where oh where has my chametz gone oh where oh where can it be,
My Ima has cleaned so carefully, oh where oh where can it be.
Oh where oh where has my chametz gone oh where oh where can it be,
With a candle and feather we search every room, oh where oh where can it be.
Oh where oh where has my chametz gone oh where oh where can it be,
Pesach is coming so chametz we burn oh where oh where can it be.
Oh where oh where has my chametz gone oh where oh where can it be,
Pesach is here only matzoh we'll eat, no more chametz for me.
Happy Passover!