Rabbi Heinemann: Purchasing Chometz From Target Immediately After Pesach Is Not Okay

targetNOTICE: Purchasing Chometz from Target – even locally – immediately after Pesach is not okay, Rabbi Shmuel Heinemann of the Star-K told TLS today.

Rabbi Heinemann says that Target stores purchase their food items from a Jewish distributor that does not sell its Chometz. Therefore, Chometz may not be purchased from these stores until four weeks after Pesach.

One may begin purchasing Chometz at these stores beginning after Lag B’omer, Wednesday, May 21, 2014, Rabbi Heinemann says.

However, purchasing Chometz items immediately after Pesach from the following National stores, is okay: (The Shop Rite on Madison Avenue in Lakewood is okay).

BJ’s
CVS
Costco
Food Lion
K-Mart
Mars
Petco
Petsmart
Rite-Aid
Royal Farms
Sam’s Discount Warehouse
Shoppers Food Warehouse
Sav-A-Lot
Trader Joe’s
Walgreens
Walmart
Wegman’s
Winn-Dixie.
[TLS]

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24 COMMENTS

  1. as a goy I have a question ? I was approached a few times prior to Passover and asked if I wanted to buy Chometz . one person actually asked if I would buy it for a dollar and sell it back shortly after . is this permitted or standard practice ? always looking to learn more about the traditions and holidays

  2. To lkwd FF,
    It is accepted practice but needs clarification. I’d suggest asking one of the Jewish members of the department, they should be able to explain further. Of course, thank you for your service to the community.

  3. Lkwd ff
    Yes it is permitted and standard. However the dollar is only a deposit. Or a down payment. If you decide to keep the chometz and do not sell it back then the actual value is evaluated and you have to pay up.
    The sale is a legal sale enforceable both in Jewish law as well as secular law.

  4. ok so if you can buy or give the same Chometz back why can you not buy new stuff from target ? This is the part the confuses me. Thanks for the responses.

  5. Our Rov says that if the goy wants to keep the chometz that he bought he has to pay the wholesale value of the merchandise, not the retail value. The goy also gets paid for his time and services in making the transaction even if he doesn’t keep the chometz, he still makes something.

  6. To Lakewood FF,

    To expand on what Dovid said, the problem is Jewish owned Chometz (bread products) that was not sold over Passover. Target buys their Chometz from a Jewish source over Passover; i.e. said Chometz was Jewish owned over Passover.

  7. I agree it does sound strange that the whole year we say “patronize the Jewish stores, support the community” and now we say ” only buy from a goy, without any Jewish partners”. The answer is ” zos chukas hatorah!”

  8. From what I’ve heard, the issue with Shoprite is not limited to each individual store but rather to the Parent store (Wakefern Food Corporation).

  9. To Lakewood FF
    The basis for the basis for the concept of the sale of chametz over Pesach, is this:
    The Torah forbids us from not only consuming chametz on Pesach, but also forbids us to OWN it over the holiday. We must remove any and all chametz products from our posession. In addition, if a jew violated that commandment and owned chametz over Pesach, that chametz becomes forbidden for a Jew to consume, ever, even after the holiday.
    (this is the origin of the “Pesach cleaning” concept, as a Jew is required to remove all chametz from his possesion).
    A viable solution to avoid destroying significantly valuable (and in some businesses case, multi millions worth) while still avoiding ownership on Pesach, is to sell it (in both a Judaically as well as secularly legally binding transaction) to a non-jew, who takes ownership over the holiday and sells it back after the holiday, thus making it permissable to be used.

  10. I heard that this applies to the Baltimore Target only, not the others. Somehow I don’t believe that *all* the Targets in the US have the same Jewish distributor.

Comments are closed.