if a jewish shop has a sign saying it is chometz free what does this mean?

Answer 1

It means that there is no yeast or leavened things inside and you can go inside and buy things from it during and for Passover.

Answer 2

It's to do with having a clear out before Passover. It is the shop's way of telling customers that it is ok to shop there during Passover.

Chometz is grain that has been allowed to ferment with water, known as leaven bread. This must be cleared from all areas of life before Passover begins.

For more info google "Chometz" or go to Wikipedia

Answer 3

What is Chometz?
The Torah defines chometz as any mixture that contains flour and water that has been allowed to ferment.

The Torah defines five types of grain that can become chometz when mixed with liquid: grain: wheat, spelt, oats, barley, and rye, or any of their derivatives. (Those are also the only five types of grain from which we may make Passover matzah to eat the first two nights of Passover.)

If you mix such flour with water, and leave it undisturbed, under optimum conditions it will become chometz in eighteen minutes. If, however, the flour touched hot water, or salted water, it becomes chometz INSTANTLY.

Also, if flour touches water that is mixed with another liquid, it becomes chometz instantly. Ironically, things like apple juice cannot cause flour to ferment, but apple juice mixed with water causes the mixture to ferment and become chometz instantly.

You cannot simply buy flour from the store and make matzah with it. In the first place, flour today is processed. It is often washed, which makes it chometz. Grain is usually tempered, which means it is soaked in water to soften it. Many flours are bleached. Any one of these processes make the grain chometz. There are other problems as well.

What about special flour from health food stores? Well, the Torah says "And you shall guard the matzos..." (Exodus 12:17). In other words, you must guard them carefully so that they do not become chometz.

(Incidentally, I got a letter from someone disputing the text of that verse. She claimed that the Torah really says that we must guard the Holiday of Matzos, not the matzos! However, she was the victim of a faulty translation The travesty of a mistranslation known as the King James Bible misrenders this verse as "And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread." The original Hebrew says that we must guard the MATZOS. This is yet another good reason to always be sure to look at the source, not some distorted mistranslation skewed to fit some non-Jewish viewpoint never intended by the Torah. But we digress.)

If you buy flour that the miller claims has never been processed with water, you are nevertheless buying flour that has not been guarded by the Torah's standards.

In point of fact, the flour used for proper Passover Matzos is guarded even before it has been ground into flour. It is guarded from water from the very moment the stalks of wheat are harvested. If they touch water at any time after that, they are not used for Passover. Throughout every step of the process, the flour and the water are carefully (and separately) guarded. They are transported and stored with the same exacting measure of care. They are kept from any warmth until the actual baking takes place, because heat can speed up the chometz process, which we want to avoid.

Every utensil used in baking the matzah, the table, the kneading bowl, the cup that pours the water, the rolling pins, from beginning to end, absolutely every tool is carefully made kosher for Passover each and every eighteen minutes while the matzah bakery is being used. You can read about this process in greater detail at an article called "More on Chametz," and also in my article "Baking The Passover Matzah."

Even a mixture of chometz and permissible products is forbidden.

Extracts from chometz are also forbidden. Alcoholic fermentation from chometz is forbidden. Many of the foods and snacks you eat all year are chometz. The obvious ones are bread, cake, crackers, pretzels, cereal, noodles (except pure egg noodles prepared entirely with Passover utensils), beer, malt, whiskey, and so forth. Even a food in which chometz has been very diluted on Passover is forbidden. Even non-chometz food prepared in utensils that have been used for chometz are chometz and may not be eaten on Passover, even if you wash the pots first.

Answer 4

Foods that contain fermented wheat or flour are chometz. During Passover we cannot eat chometz.

Answer 5

Chometz are fermented grains and they are forbidden on Passover.

Answer 6

slightly ambiguous wording so one of two i guess....

1. We don't have chometz here

2. Get your free chometz here

Answer 7

please click on the link below.