Kosher for Passover software

[Micha Feigin]

On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 07:40:21 +0300
"Nadav Har'El" <nyh at math.technion.ac.il> wrote:

> We're in the middle of Passover, and apparently observant Jews who are
> computer users are facing a new problem: a famous Rabbi has just declared [1]
> that during the week of Passover, observant Jews must only use software which
> has been certified Kosher-for-Passover.
> 
> How can software possibly contain chometz? And who eats software anyway? :-)
> As it turns out, it's not just that you're not allowed to eat chometz on
> Passover - you're not allowed even to "benefit" from it. Observant jews
> already make sure that during Passover, their dogs eat kosher-for-passover

Where can you get kosher for passover dog/cat food? I always have to stock up
for my cats as the super markets just hide the pet food but never bring any
alternatives. Not that I know why my cats would want to eat kosher anyway, but
in case we run out ...

> dogfood, their toilet paper is free of chometz, and the milk they drink comes
> from cows that hadn't eaten chometz. The new decision is that using software
> which benefited from chometz during Passover is disallowed. And how can
> software possibly benefit from chometz? Easy - Napoleon once said that
> "the army marches on its stomache". Likewise, programmers eat, and without
> food, there can be no software. If programmers ate chometz on Passover,
> and you use this software, you're benefiting from chometz on Passover,
> which is not allowed.
> 
> Here in the Israeli software industry we're in a unique position to produce
> kosher-for-passover software, because most of our programmers eat only
> kosher-for-passover food during passover. If we only make sure not to
> accidentally mix-in pieces of chometz software into our kosher software.
> We should especially avoid free software - because much of it was written by
> gentiles who eat bread during Passover!
> 
> Happy holiday!
> 
> Nadav.
>