Allan Appel Photo
With his Jewish friends preparing for Passover, Judge Matthew Frechette became the owner of thousands of boxes of Cheerios. Houses throughout New Haven, Waterbury, and Vermont came into his possession. Not to mention two Mercedes of recent vintage. Total price: sixty bucks.
Welcome to the great Chametz Sale of 2010.
As the eight-day Jewish festival of Passover approaches at sundown Monday, religious Jews have high anxiety about ridding their homes of every trace of leavened bread or bread crumbs, various forbidden grains, or any food that may have come into contact with utensils that may have touched those grains.
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They sell all their leftover “chametz,” or leavened products, to a non-Jew. Also, if they’re traveling or unable to do the awesomely mandated inspection of every Jewish nook and cranny, including vehicles, they can lease their entire premises to a non-Jew.
Both such transactions were conducted Sunday afternoon on behalf of 50 New Haven families and 90 Waterbury families in the offices of Rabbi Dov Greer at Elm and Norton Streets. It was old hat not only to Rabbi Greer, but also to Frechette, who has been the go-to Christian for the Greer rabbinical family for more than two decades.
Branford-based Frechette was an attorney when he began buying New Haven chametz from Greer’s father Rabbi Daniel Greer. Now he’s a Superior Court judge in criminal court in New London. He understands that for observant Jews the transaction is not symbolic but legal, encoded in Jewish law.
That’s why he ended up engaging in at least five different methods of proper transfer and lease, including a handshake, a written document or contract, and the exchanging of money (coins are preferable to bills), and a personal item, like a pen,.
Frechette understands how, for example, the exchange of piece of property, such as a pen, is like a metonymy, a part for a whole, but as in a barter, or in Anglo Saxon legal terms, “livery of season.” Frechette “appreciates and understands this,” said Greer.
Fame of Frechette’s Passover acumen, via Greer, reached Waterbury. So Rabbi Yosef Sonneschein from the Bnai Shalom synagogue came down to Greer’s synagogue Sunday with his son Moish. Sonneschein (pictured at the top of the story with Frechette) as chametz-selling agent for 90 Waterbury families. Waterbury was a geographical first for Frechette.
“I’m even selling to you cereal food in Israel if you happen to be there,” Sonneschein explained. Frechette understood. It wasn’t as if he were staying “in character,” acting as if he were owning it for the eight days of Passover; he was the owner.
Then Sonneschein solemnly asked if the owners of the said chametz in a particular contract could eat a little this afternoon, even though it no longer belonged to them. Frechette gave his permission.
“It’s exciting to be near the countdown to Passover,” the judge said. “It’s like Palm Sunday for me.”
The penalty for having chametz in your domain is serious, according to Jewish law, a kind of “spiritual excision.” Hence the many overlapping methods of sale.
Frechette explained it to a reporter, as Rabbi Greer senior had explained it to him 20 years ago.
“It’s like wearing a belt and suspenders,” he said.
At the end of the Passover holiday, the parties engage in a reverse transaction. Frechette transfers back the chametz and the property to the rabbis, as agents for the many families. If there is any quibbling about any Cheerios or other chamez that Frechette might have consumed, the parties negotiate then.
As owner, if he wants to, he may enter many houses (the contracts tell him the addresses, the locations of the keys, passwords and so forth) and eat his way through cookies and other leavened products to his heart’s content. Of course he never has.
Greer expressed his gratitude by giving Frechette a bottle of Glenlivet single malt scotch.
Frechette said thanks. Greer said he was most welcome. In any event, Greer needed to unload the scotch, most definitely a Passover-forbidden grain “chametz” product.
Now you may test your chametz acumen. In the picture above, which is the only non-chametz item allowed to be with the ritual Passover matzoh?
The answer is … bananas! Have a happy Passover.