Afflicted by bread? Sell it

Some commandments are easier to keep than others.

Need to sell your hametz, that undesirable bread, before Passover? No problem. The Code of Jewish Law states that one has until five-twelfths of the way into Passover Eve to sell or give away hametz to a non-Jew. That’s roughly ten hours into the day.

Jews, banned by biblical law from owning or consuming leavened items during the week of Passover, have been selling their hametz to non-Jews for well over a thousand years. It’s almost always a pro forma sale; when Passover is over the products revert to their original owner (whose abode they never physically left).

And now it’s easier than ever, with more than one organization offering the option of selling hametz online. It’s not a new trend, but it is one that’s been gaining in numbers among various religious populations.

There are differing opinions as to who thought of it first, but it seems that Chabad was the first to streamline the process.

In the late 1950s, Chabad mailed brochures to Jewish homes and communities with forms for selling hametz that could be filled in and mailed back. In the late 1980s, Chabad sold peoples’ hametz by listserv and email. In 1995, the sale mechanism was available online.

In fact, the overall resurgence of the commandment is often linked to the global Passover campaign launched in 1954 by Chabad-Lubavitch and its Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson. The Rebbe encouraged Jewish leaders to distribute hand-baked shmura matzah to families, invite people to public seders and to organize the sale of hametz in their communities, said Chaim Landa, who handles media relations for Chabad.org.

The organization’s website, Chabad.org. had more than 42 million unique visitors in 2014. This year, website administrators anticipate some 70,000 people selling their hametz through Chabad.org’s Passover site, Passover.org, said Landa. The organization also created the Passover Assistant app, which should add another 5,000 in hametz sales.

“The Rebbe taught our generation that every Jew, regardless of background, affiliation or geographic location, should have access to celebrate our Torah’s traditions and should have the ability to fully observe the Passover holiday,” said Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin, executive director of Chabad.org. “The online sale of hametz helps enable many more people to observe the important mitzvah of not owning hametz during Passover.”

It’s just so much easier to sell hametz online, said Rabbi Mikie Goldstein, from the Adat Shalom Emanuel Masorti synagogue in Rehovot.

According to Goldstein, the original ruling permitting the sale of chametz related to selling it on the telephone.

“You can sell it in any way that is the regular way for selling things,” he said. “It moved from the telephone into the Internet.”

The Masorti movement has been selling hametz online for the last four years, and 250 people used the service last year, said Sharon Banyan, the movement’s spokesperson.

Goldstein said he will end up selling some of his congregants’ hametz in person during open hours at the synagogue on Wednesday evening. “There are people who like doing it in person, the traditional way,” he said, “but it is easier online. and we all live online these days.”

The synagogue raises money from those who come in person to sell their hametz, which is then donated to local families in need.

The numbers are far higher at Kipa.co.il, a website geared toward Israel’s national religious types. Some 70,000 people will sell their hametz online with Kipa, estimated Boaz Nachtstern, who started the website back in 2000.

In fact, the trigger for founding Kipa was the sale of hametz. In its first year, some 1,000 people sold their hametz through the site. It also included some Pesach recipes and articles.

“One of the reasons we started doing it online was because it was never clear where the money was going when people would sell their hametz to some unknown source,” said Nachtstern. “That’s why so many people do it now, because with us it’s straightforward and honest. Pesach is a stressful holiday, and this is something you can do in two minutes on the computer and without going to a rabbi in the shul.”

Kipa has its own in-house rabbi, Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, the chief rabbi of the Samaria settlements and head of the Elon Moreh yeshiva, who handles the actual hametz sale for the site’s online customers.

In the last five years, said Nachtstern, Kipa has become more of a news site, but primarily used by the modern Orthodox crowd, offering news that’s relevant to the community. The site has about 60,000 unique views a day, said Nachtstern.

Even a Yellow gas station sold their hametz through Kipa, said Nachtstern.

“The certification of the sale was hanging over their counter,” he said. “It’s not a kosher place, but it was important to someone there and he asked to do it.”

Selling hametz is getting an increasing amount of attention, said Yakov Gaon, executive vice president of Tzohar, a nonprofit organization founded by modern Orthodox rabbis in an effort to help shape the Jewish character of Israel.

“Selling hametz is only one small activity that we do to help guarantee a strong Jewish connection,” said Gaon.

At Tzohar, which was founded 20 years ago and focuses on rabbinic leadership, public policy and grassroots services, a large part of the activity happens around Jewish marriage, helping secular couples go through the complex process of marrying through the Israeli chief rabbinate.

Once couples marry through Tzohar, said Gaon, they often end up participating in other Jewish life cycle events, eventually gaining an interest in rituals like selling their hametz and creating a more kosher Passover environment in their homes.

“Our couples asked us what to do about hametz,” said Gaon, “so it came from the bottom up.”

Tzohar provided their online hametz sale site four years ago. Rabbi David Stav, chairman of Tzohar and the rabbi of the town of Shoham, is the organization’s emissary for the sale.

By 2013, hametz sales via Tzohar were up to 5,000 and reached 7,000 last year, said Gaon. He’s assuming it will reach a similar number this year, particularly since the group has also translated the sale document into Russian, English and Spanish in addition to Hebrew.

And like Kipa and Chabad, the sale is free, like all of Tzohar’s activities, in order to avoid a connection between the “the beauty of Jewish life and fees,” he said.

“Doing the sale of hametz online is just part of our general agenda,” said Gaon.