Making a Date for Passover

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By: Rabbi Binyamin Kaplan

The Coachella Valley in California is a desert area bounded by tall mountains a few hours east of Los Angeles. One does not expect much agriculture in a place where the high temperature in summer tends to be around 115 degrees day after day, but deserts have palm trees, and palm trees produce dates, the closest thing there is to candy which grows on trees. And the Coachella Valley is not just any desert valley. Its great abundance of groundwater makes it an especially good climate for growing dates, so much so that it produces 95 percent of the dates grown in the United States.

The OU certifies a number of date plants in the Coachella Valley, in towns with names like Coachella,Thermal, and Mecca. Since dates are delightful straight out of nature, one might suppose that they are relatively free of kosher issues, and for the most part this is true. However, all the date plants that I visit use oat flour, pure chometz, the main prohibition of Passover. The date flour is used to make chopped dates coated with oat flour and dextrose. One still might suppose that is easy to make OUP plain dates. Surely the oat flour is only used on certain lines. What would need to be done beyond making sure that the lines used for plain dates are clean?

There is one other factor that one might miss. Dates are typically hydrated in steam rooms that can reach 140 degrees and dehydrated at similar temperatures. It is easier to remove the pits from the softened hydrated dates, and then the moisture must be reduced to achieve a finished product with a proper shelf life. The plastic trays used to hold the plain dates during hydration or dehydration may also be used to dry chopped dates mixed with dextrose and oat flour.This introduces a significant kosher concern: shared equipment used hot for both the chopped dates with oat flour and the plain dates.

For this year’s Passover production at Cal Sungold in Thermal, the OU worked out a procedure with the company kosher contact, Tony Villapaldo.The company had a supply of raw dates in cold storage which had not been dehydrated at harvest and which could thus be used for Passover production.

The OU had Cal Sungold clean the trays, drying rooms, and steam rooms used for the OUP dates.To be kosherized, clean trays were allowed to sit for 24 hours, then were put empty into a steam room until they were wet from condensed steam.The trays were then filled with the raw dates from storage and sealed in the hydration room.

The OU field rabbi returned on the day designated for packing, unsealed the steam room, and kosherized the necessary number of trays for dehydrating the dates.The dates were then removed from the previous trays and moved to the new trays and put into the dehydrating tunnel. Afterwards, the rabbi remained for the packing of the Passover cartons.

Presumably, the dates were served in Jewish homes on the holiday, and it was most fitting for them to be on the table. When the Jewish people left Egypt on the original Passover, they anticipated entering “a land flowing with milk and honey.” the rabbis tell us that this is not a reference to bee honey, but rather to honey made from dates.

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