Rabbis: No Grain 1 Week Before Passover, Lest Pleasure Of Taking Massive Dump During Holiday Result From Chametz

“Make every effort not to void bowels until Friday night, once the holiday has formally concluded.”

Jerusalem, April 25 – The Chief Rabbinate of Israel will announce next year in advance of the Passover festival that one should abstain from consuming leavened grain products not only during the festival, following standard Jewish practice, but for up to a week prior to Passover as well, amid concerns that the profound satisfaction of taking a massive dump, if it occurs during Passover, might result from the consumption of chametz. Jewish law proscribes gaining benefit from chametz during Passover.

Chief Rabbis David Lau and Yitzhak Yosef arrived at the decision independently during the first two days of Passover this year, when it was already too late to warn Jews of the  risks inherent in pre-Passover chametz-eating. However, the two Rabbis agreed to issue a formal ruling at the appropriate time next year, so that observant practitioners may take proper precautions.

“It is our considered opinion that the physical and psychological ecstasy brought about by voiding one’s bowels in quantity falls under the category of benefit that, if it results from eating chametz, is forbidden on Passover,” they wrote in an internal Rabbinate memo. “Human alimentary cycles vary; however , after consulting with gastroenterologists, we believe that one week is sufficient time to ensure that all chametz has already been eliminated from the digestive tract by the time Passover begins, and that any other satisfying dumps are not a forbidden benefit. Consequently, it should be standard practice to refrain from eating chametz from mid-morning on the seventh of Nisan, exactly one week before the prohibition against chametz begins.”

“Nevertheless,” continued the memo, “we recognize both that it is too late this year to apprise the public of this concern and that for some people it is possible to counteract the potential of a chametz-induced satisfying dump by the consumption of large quantities of matza over a short period to generate constipation and thus forestall the pleasure of a massive dump until after Passover, when the prohibition against chametz is less severe. We therefore recommend that, in addition to promulgating this ruling in a timely fashion next year, community leaders advise their congregants to stuff themselves with matza to the greatest possible extent immediately, and make every effort not to void their bowels until Friday night, once the holiday has formally concluded.”

In a related development, a Chabad Rabbi generated controversy today by ruling that even after passing through the digestive system it is possible for matza to become chametz if it gets wet, and that anyone with even a whiff of true Torah sensibility would refrain from pooping in the toilet during Passover, instead burying feces in the ground or burning it.