Search and Destroy
Any area where one can reasonably suspect that chametz might have been brought throughout the year must be thoroughly cleaned. This includes the home, office, cars, garage, etc. Check carefully to ensure that no crumb is left behind: check and clean desks, drawers, closets, clothing pockets (especially the children’s), pocketbooks, briefcases and attache cases, beds, dining and living room furniture, bookcases, etc.
If You Can’t Destroy it, Sell It
Chametz that you don’t want to destroy, and utensils used throughout the year (and not koshered for Passover), should be stored in closets or rooms which will be sealed for the duration of Passover. The chametz should be sold to a non-Jew through a rabbi. Click here to sell your chametz online.
When kashering the kitchen, where most chametz is held throughout the year, you identify malt beers, delicious cookies, your favorite pasta, and perhaps an expesive liquor, all of which you value and kind of covet. Instead of physically removing the chametz from your home, to be burned the morning before Passover, we symbolically sell these chametz to a non-Jew via a rabbi. They don't leave our house but our transferred out of our possession via a halachic contract or transaction. However, we enter into this contract knowing full well that after Pesach, we will be able to "buy back" that chametz, which we've had all along. How is this not dishonest? Do we value our chametz so much that we can't donate them, physically, to a food bank or some other organization, and stock up again after Pesach? I am confused by this convention.
You can of course donate your Chametz to a food bank, and give away your liquor to a non-Jew by the morning before Passover.
The sale of Chametz was instituted for those who cannot, or will not for whatever reason, give away their Chametz.
Please see here 1689 for more details about the legal basis for the sale.
If you would like even more detailed information about this please write to our Ask the Rabbi service, and we'll be glad to clarify this further.
The sale is a completely legal and binding sale - which is what Halacha (Jewish Law) requires for the Chametz to have left the possession of the Jew, and been legally transferred to the non-Jew.