Passover is the holiday celebrating the liberation of the Jews from Egypt. Because we had to leave Egypt in such a hurry, there wasn't time to wait for the bread to rise. To remember how quickly we had to leave, Jews do not eat bread or other forbidden foods " chametz " during the holiday of passover.  Chametz is the hebrew word for any food product made from wheat, barley, rye, oats or spelt that Jews do not eat during passover.

Before passover, it's traditional to find and destroy any chametz from our homes. Before we begin our seder, we are going to search our hearts for our personal chametz that we'd like to be rid of this year. We ask everyone to type their chametz into the chat!

We'll then recite the blessing for getting rid of chametz as we symbolically remove all the listed chametz from our lives: 

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech haolam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu al biur chametz.

Blessed are You, our God, Ruler of the world, who sanctifies us with mitzvot and calls upon us to remove chametz.


haggadah Section: Introduction
Source: Summarized and adapted from Love & Justice in a time of war Haggadah by Dara Silverman and Micah Bazant 2003