One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
חָמֵץ וּמַצָּה
Chametz u'Matzah · Chapter 2
Sefer Zemanim · The search of the house, and the search of the self it has always pictured
Heart
Where destroying chametz begins (bittul)
Candle
The only light fit for the search, at night
9 vs 1
Fixed doubt is judged as an even split
30 days
Travelers must search before departing
Part 1It begins in the heart
- Destruction is bittul. By Torah law the "destruction" of chametz is an act of the heart: to resolve one owns none of it and consider it all as dust. A firm resolve suffices; no statement is needed. (2:1-2)
- Dust and no value. Once a person genuinely nullifies ownership, even a house full of chametz is, in the Torah's eyes, already destroyed. (2:2)
- Why the Sages added more. Nullification depends on the heart's feelings - and a person may not truly mean it - so the Sages required a physical search on top of it. (2:3)
RememberThe search exists because the Sages did not trust us to have meant our own nullification.
Part 2By the light of a candle
- Night, by candlelight. Search at the start of the night of the 14th - everyone is home and the small flame reaches the dark crevices. (2:3)
- Not a torch. No moonlight, sunlight, or torch - a person fears bringing a torch near a crack lest it catch fire, so he will not search well. (2:4)
- Where, and where not. The courtyard's middle is skipped (birds eat the chametz); the low holes where a child might carry a crust must be searched. (2:4-6)
- The governing rule. Any place chametz is not brought need not be searched; every place it might have been carried must be. (2:5-6)
RememberOnly the modest single candle, held right up to the crack, will do - the design of the search knows how people avoid looking.
Part 3The mouse and the weasel
- Mouse vs. child. A mouse seen entering with bread means search again; crumbs do not settle it (mice do not crumble). A child with bread and crumbs needs no second search (children do crumble). (2:8-9)
- Fixed is fifty-fifty. Nine piles of matzah and one of chametz - a mouse takes from among them and enters a searched house: search again, for a fixed doubt is judged as even, not by the odds. (2:10)
- Separated follows the majority. If one loaf first separated from the piles and then was taken, no second search - once separated, we follow the majority (matzah). (2:11)
- Same or not. Mouse in, mouse out - assume it is the same, no search; but white-in and black-out, or mouse-in and weasel-out, require a search. (2:13)
RememberThe law neither shrugs off real doubt nor is paralyzed by it - it reasons, case by case, about how much is truly in question.
Part 4Whose corner is it
- Duty follows the keys. Keys handed over before the night of the 14th - the tenant searches; after - the landlord does, whoever held the house when the obligation fell. (2:18)
- Presumed searched. A house rented on the 14th is presumed already searched, if the tenant can still nullify any chametz found. (2:17)
- The traveler. Setting out to sea or by caravan within 30 days of Pesach, one must search before departing; farther out, if he means to return, he still searches, lest he arrive with no time to destroy. (2:19)
RememberYou cannot rent out or travel away from the accounting - the corner is yours to search as long as it is yours.