Passover Prep -- CHRONICLE Online/The WORD 04/10/25

Weekly On-line Rabbi's D'var-Torah

April 10, 2025

12 Nisan 5785

Parashat Tzav

Shabbat Hagadol

With Passover starting on a Saturday night this year, there is definitely an added layer of difficulty in the preparations for the holiday.  We are supposed to get rid of all our chametz before Shabbat begins—a full 24 hours earlier than we would ordinarily do so. However, we are also not supposed to eat matzah until Saturday evening at the Seder.

If you were feeling bad for yourself because you are having a difficult time preparing for Passover this year, I thought I’d share with you one of my favorite historical accounts. It was written during the US Civil War by Private Joseph Joel of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Together with about 20 other Jews, he requested time off from duty to observe the holiday of Passover. Their commander, future US President Rutherford B. Hayes, acquiesced. Here is Private Joel’s description of their Passover preparations as it appeared in the Jewish Messenger after the war:

"Our next business was to find some suitable person to proceed to Cincinnati, Ohio, to buy us Matzos. Our sutler, being a co-religionist and going home to that city readily undertook to send them. We were anxiously awaiting to receive our [matzos] and about the middle of the morning of פסח [Pesach] a supply train arrived in camp, and to our delight seven barrels of Matzos. On opening them, we were surprised and pleased to find that our thoughtful sutler had enclosed two Hagodahs [sic] and prayer-books. 

“We were now able to keep the פסח [Pesach] nights, if we could only obtain the other requisites for that occasion. We held a consultation and decided to send parties to forage in the country while a party stayed to build a log hut for the service. About the middle of the afternoon the foragers arrived, having been quite successful. We obtained two kegs of cider, a lamb, several chickens, and some eggs. Horse-radish or parsley we could not obtain, but in lieu we found a weed, whose bitterness, I apprehend, exceeded anything our forefathers "enjoyed." 

We were still in a great quandary; we were like the man who drew the elephant in the lottery. We had the lamb, but did not know what part was to represent it at the table; but Yankee ingenuity prevailed, and it was decided to cook the whole and put it on the table, then we could dine off it, and be sure we could have the right part. The necessaries for the choroutzes [sic] we could not obtain, so we got a brick which, rather hard to digest, reminded us, by looking at it, for what purpose it was intended.”

It makes the Passover aisle at the Livingston ShopRite seem downright tame. You can read the rest of the account here.

Best wishes for a wonderful Passover!

Shalom,

RAF.