Every year Jews in a small town in Algiers practice eating chametz on the eighth day of Passover • Why, and what is the connection to a Christian saint, to an ancient theater, and to Kneidelch?

Passover is undoubtedly a celebration of the "hardware" enthusiasts - the halakhic exacerbations - until everything gets worse after all, it's fine. Some do not eat legumes on Passover, and others are careful not to wet the matzah and eat the matzah with gloves on their hands (and not because of the corona but because of the moisturizing hands). There are also those who think that drinking water from the tap is a complete ban, but all of these practices overshadow the custom of eating chametz in the first place on Passover eighth. Yes, there was once such a practice in the Jews of Suk Aharas.

If you haven't heard about Sok Aharas, don't worry. You're in good company. Although from the city of Suk Aharas, the celestial vocalist Simone Tamar, "Constantine's Golden Voice," and Algerian athlete Taufik of Alternate, who won a gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics, have no reason to know him; Despite the city's picturesque name, "The Lions Market" in Hebrew, Suk Aharas is just a small town in northeast Algeria, at the end of a remote district of the same name, Suk Aharas. Still, members of the Jewish community of the place had a unique custom that introduced them and their city to the pages of history, the custom of eating chametz on Passover eighth "in the ruins of Roman theater outside the locality."

While that may sound like something negligible - what's the problem with chametz on Passover eighth, Passover ends after seven days, doesn't it? - In fact, it's a real ban, because overseas, because of a second postcard, Pesach lasts eight days.

So how did the Jews of Suk Aharas, or at least some of them, start eating chametz on the eighth of Passover and make sure to do it precisely in the ruins of ancient theater? - The story begins with a wise and righteous Jew whom Dr. Eretz Yisrael could not resist. That sage, who we do not know his name, visited the small Algerian village during Passover and collected donations for the scholars of the Holy Land, The locals when he goes outside the settlement, to the same ruins, and sits there and eats chametz, "as Rabbi Prof. Daniel Schafber writes in his book" Customs of Israel, "in which the strange custom was first mentioned," Of course, the same one that Dr. Meretz wanted to eat chametz a day That there was a Passover night for Didya, while the locals thought that if the wise and righteous one who comes from the Holy Land does so, surely it is a kosher and special custom "- and from that day Thereafter began Souk Ahras Jews eat leavened eighth of Passover ancient ruins, a practice that held at least two or three generations until someone turned his attention to an innocent mistake.

The commandment to eat Kneadleech on Passover eighth

Other unique customs related to the Passover eighth can also be found in other testimonies. Such, for example, is the practice of some Chabad followers and other devotees to make and eat Kneadleh on Passover eighth, and if it sounds like a trivial anecdote, you should know that during the rest of the Chabad day, you do not eat "matzo matzo", ie matzo or matzo flour. In the water, because of the fear that there is flour that is not baked and will be missed in contact with the water.

There were also some Rebbe who would say "for a special purpose" before eating the Kneadleh, and others considered it a real compilation, and not content with eating the Kneadleh, but also make every effort to serve the matzoh they ate in every liquid presented to the table - in the fish sauce and the meat, in the soup itself and even "in the camp. "He is the fruit stew served for dessert. There was also a Rebbe who" every seventh of Pesach for dinner would stand and expect to see stars "to know that the seventh of Pesach came out and started eighth, so that he could carry out the custom of eating" matzo matzo. "

So why on Passover eighth do devotees make sure to eat Kneadleh? It turns out that this custom is meant to make a distinction between the first seven days of Passover and the eighth day, which the prohibition of the first days is from the Torah, and the prohibition of the eighth day is wise; There were also some who thought that this was meant to allow all of Israel to connect with one another, because now anyone can eat with his friend because everyone is at ease on this day. Another custom associated with Passover eighth is the strict practice of not eating chametz even after Pesach ended, a custom mentioned in the Maharal writings, Rabbi Ya'akov Halevi Ben Moshe Molin, who was head and head of the Ashkenazi scholars: "On Pesach night, there was no chametz at the Maharash ( Rabbi Shalom Mannstadt, Maharil's rabbi), and did not feel and eat matzah. "Mimuna apparently did not celebrate there.

And if we go back to the unlucky Jewish sage, his joy was where he could eat the chametz "modestly," as Suk Aharas was founded near the ruins of a Roman-Berber city called Thagaste, where he was born several centuries earlier, Augustine, one of the most important Christian church The claim that God left the covenant with the Jewish people and replaced it with a new covenant with the Christians. Try to imagine it. A wise Jew eats chametz hidden in the ruins of a Christian saint, other Jews see him and his act becomes kosher and enacted in history, so that even on Passover, hundreds of years later, other Jews read about it.