It’s been a few weeks since I last posted – that’s because we just got back from our long-planned family trek to Nepal and India. We all arrived home safe and sound on Friday. Our luggage was less fortunate. As I write, it’s still sitting in the Mumbai airport.

Normally this wouldn’t be so unusual – bags get lost all the time. “Maybe there wasn’t enough time for your suitcases to clear customs,” the harried but surprisingly polite El Al representative at Ben Gurion Airport offered. That hardly seemed likely – we had an 8-hour layover in Mumbai.

Moreover, as transit passengers coming from another airline, I had to personally identify our luggage. I saw it tagged and put on the carousel belt. We answered questions from the El Al security guy and sat with the airline personnel who hand wrote our boarding passes. So, Indian bureaucracy notwithstanding, where could the bags have gone?

Here’s a thought, which I can’t substantiate but seems plausible nonetheless, especially since we flew during hol ha moed, the intermediary days of the Passover holiday: our bags were flagged for containing chametz.

Chametz, of course, is any kind of wheat product that has risen, forbidden during the festival of unleavened bread. While normally one’s bags are checked for contraband like explosives or weapons, perhaps in our case the dogs sniffed out our various candy, Cliff and granola bars. Or was it religious El Al workers waiting for nightfall, then poking around with a candle and feather as one does during the last minute check for chametz before the holiday? That would surely have made our bags miss the loading deadline.

There was more evidence. As we boarded the plane, a printed sign informed us that El Al had kindly cleaned the plane of any chametz and that all food would be strictly kosher for Pesach. We were served matza instead of the usual hot El Al pita and bagels (my favorite part of flying with Israel’s national carrier). Indeed, our bags could easily have caused a Knesset coalition crisis had they been hoisted into the hold.

UPDATE: My religious conspiracy theory, unfortunately, turned out for naught. Our bags arrived earlier this morning, in plenty of time for the final day of the holiday. However, in deference to our doughy cargo, we decided to unpack only on Monday night, when it’s officially OK to eat as many chocolate waffelim as you desire.

Happy Pesach…I’ll have more to report from our trip (and some surprising Israeli connections) after the holiday.