Daily Talk
The same loaf that is holy on Friday night can sever a soul on the fifteenth of Nisan, and nothing in the bread changed - only the calendar did. Chametz is the one forbidden food that can never be nullified: a single speck forbids an entire mixture, precisely because it will be permitted again after Pesach. Why does the law surround this one substance with a wall no other prohibition gets?
The Thing That Cannot Be Diluted
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About This Talk
Chametz u'Matzah 1 builds outward from full severity - karet for an olive's worth - to the demand that chametz not merely go uneaten but be unowned, unbenefited, and unseen in your domain, and finally to the ruling that it can never be diluted away. The tradition hears in the risen dough a picture of the swollen self, which is why the chapter ends by building a fence, and a fence around the fence, with margin left for the cloudy day.