Pesach Article

Preparing for Pesach in Zmigrod

Chana Laks
Debi Reece

My father-in-law, Mr. Naftali Laks z”l, was born in 1922 in the Galicia area of Poland, in the town of Nowy Zmigrod.  He survived several concentration camps, emigrated to Palestine/Israel after the war, and eventually settled in the United States.  He spent his last years with my husband and me in Passaic and was niftar this past November.

Over the course of his life, my father-in-law shared rich memories of his upbringing in the staunchly Chassidic Mesorah of Zmigrod.  The paragraphs below are adapted from the website we are constructing to commemorate his life: Naftali.LaksFamily.com.

Pesach was the Yom Tov that everyone looked forward to.  This was partly because Pesach arrived in the spring, after the long, harsh Polish winter.  The food one ate depended heavily on the season in small towns in Poland, especially if one didn’t have money to spare for imported luxuries.  Hens didn’t lay eggs in the winter, and cows didn’t produce milk.  Potatoes, the mainstay of the shtetl diet, were stored in the autumn in the basement.  By the end of winter, they were half rotten and quite unappetizing.

Whereas for us, Pesach food is seen as a downgrade from the year-round fare, in Zmigrod, the Pesach food was much better than one had during the year.  Already in the winter, preparation began as housewives cooked goose fat in Pesach-dik pots and stored it for the Yom Tov.  By Pesach, eggs and milk were available and families were willing to spend more freely on food. Mr. Laks remembers his mother buying ten dozen eggs for a family of eight.

Pesach cleaning was an arduous job combining spring cleaning with removing Chometz.  Everything needed to be aired after winter in a well-insulated house with little ventilation.  Mattresses in Zmigrod consisted of sacks stuffed with straw.  Before Pesach, the straw was emptied and replaced with fresh straw.  Boiling water was poured over the wooden bed boards to kill bed bugs. 

The seforim in the house were brought out to the backyard and placed on planks to air.  There weren’t too many seforim.  There was a Chayei Adam, the basic halacha sefer used in Chassidic households.  The Tzeina u’Re’ena was read assiduously by the mother, a very pious and intelligent woman.  Mr. Laks himself accumulated a few gemaras from his years in Cheder.  They had to be purchased in Yaslow, a larger town, since Zmigrod did not have a seforim shop.  And then there was the Nach, inherited from his mother’s family, a large multi-volume set with thick pages, at least two hundred years old.  Mr. Laks remembers the tiny holes in the pages, left by generations of bookworms.

Mr. Laks lost his father the year after he turned Bar Mitzva.  His mother Rivka and the family turned to baking Matza in their home in order to generate a little income, especially to pay for the extra costs of Pesach. Rivka would clear out the brick oven and use loads of wood to heat it to make it Kosher for Pesach.  They paid the Zmigroder Rebbe (a grandson of the Zanzer Rebbe) to certify that the Matza was kosher.  The Rav would charge a few zlotys to check that the oven had been heated to the right temperature by inserting a shovel.

Rivka hired a specialist to mix and knead the dough, as well as someone experienced in moving the Matza in and out of the oven.  Most of the work was done by his sisters, but Naftali helped by using the roller to make the holes in the Matza.  It was a lot of work, and one of the sisters in later years was surprised to learn that people would want to pay money to make their own Matza.  To her and her sisters, machine Matza was the real luxury.

Removing the Chometz from the house was done the day before B'dikas Chometz.  The following day, the Laks' switched from the Chometz, year-round pots, pans, and dishes, to the Pesach-ware.  There was no food available until the switchover was made, sometime in the afternoon.  As soon as the transition was done, Rivka cooked a big batch of potatoes and the starving family was able to eat.

Mr. Laks had very fond memories of the Pesach food. Lots of eggs and goose fat were consumed.  The chicken soup was richer, perhaps because the chickens were happier, healthier and fatter in the spring.

The Chassidishe Minhag is to avoid “broching”: breaking Matza and mixing it with liquid.  However, the Matza they had in Zmigrod was tough and chewy, and the dental care in Zmigrod consisted of pulling out teeth.  Most people did not have teeth strong enough to eat the Matza straight.  Instead, Matza was crumbled into hot coffee for breakfast, and was made into Matza-brie and Matza balls for other meals.  Mr. Laks had the chore of making Matza meal, using a wooden contraption similar to a butter churn to chop and grind the Matza.

Matza was considered a delicacy by the non-Jews.  It was customary for Jewish children, who were obliged to attend public school, to bring two Matzas to give to their Polish teachers. 

Wine was not widely available in Zmigrod.  The Laks’, like most shtetl families, made their own version by soaking raisins in water for a few days.

The Laks seder was a simple, brief affair.  Everyone was exhausted, and the women, who had been working especially hard, tended to fall asleep at the table.  Mr. Laks’ father Duvid, and after his passing, Naftali, would read from the Hagadah using the traditional Galician Chassidic chant and melody.  When his sister emigrated to the United States, she missed hearing this melodious sing-song until years later, when Naftali moved to America and led the seder.

At the end of the Seder, a piece of the Afikomen Matza was put behind the mirror in the hallway.  This piece of Matza would be burned along with the Chometz before Pesach the following year.  No one gave a reason for this picturesque custom.  Recently, we saw in an article in the Jewish Action a technical explanation for the practice.  In order to make sure that “Challah” was taken from one’s Matza, people were told to save a piece of Matza and burn it the following year with the Chometz they would be burning. 

Researching the matter online, we discovered that that this minhag is brought down in minhag seforim (Minhag Yisroel Torah, Nitei Gavriel, and others).  The piece of Matza is kept as a “shmira” (protection) for the home.  Many hang it on top of a doorway until the next Erev Pesach when they burn it with the chometz. 

The end of Pesach was very sad for Mr. Laks and the rest of the family.  After the Yom Tov was finished, Rivka would make one more big Matza brie, and then everyone would work together to put away the Pesach utensils and switch back to Chometz and their regular fare.

We wish our readers a Chag Kasher v’Sameach!