Siman 434, Se'if 1 · The Torah obligation at its root: bittul or biur

Shulchan Aruch, Siman 434, the time of bedikas chametz, containing two se'ifim.
"At the beginning of the night of the fourteenth of Nissan we search for chametz by the light of a candle, in the holes and the cracks, in every place where one has reason to assume chametz was brought."
(Shulchan Aruch, se'if 1)

The Torah obligation at its root: bittul or biur

"By Torah law either one of them suffices. For example, if he nullifies it in his heart and renounces ownership of it, it is no longer his and he does not transgress on account of it. And all the more so if he searches it out, hunts after it, and destroys it from the world."
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 2)

• The meaning of "tashbisu": The Torah says, "On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses." According to the straightforward explanation that the Mishnah Berurah adopts, the point is that a person should not have chametz in his possession.
• The first route, bittul and hefker: It is enough for a person to nullify the chametz in his heart and renounce ownership of it. From that moment the chametz is not his and he does not transgress at all, and it makes no difference whether the chametz is sitting in the yard, in the house, or under the bed.
• The second route, biur: Someone who did not renounce ownership, but instead searched the whole house for chametz and destroyed it from the world, has also fulfilled "tashbisu," since no chametz remains in his possession.
• The conclusion on the Torah level: Strictly by Torah law, a person could discharge his obligation with either one of the two routes alone, without combining them.

The definition of the prohibition: "yours you may not see"

• The source of the distinction: The verse says, "No chametz shall be seen by you, and no leaven shall be seen by you." Yours you may not see, but you may see chametz belonging to others and chametz belonging to hekdesh. The entire prohibition applies only to chametz that is his.
• A practical difference: If someone threw chametz into his friend's property on Pesach, the homeowner does not transgress on account of it, since the chametz is not his. Were it otherwise, there would be no end to the matter.
• Unlike meat and milk: With meat that had milk spilled on it, the mixture renders the meat forbidden. Why the law is one way here and another way there is a question in its own right.

The Rabbinic decree: both bittul and biur are required

"But Chazal were stringent, and one of them does not suffice; rather both are specifically required."
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 2)

In practice we do both: we search out and destroy the chametz, and we also nullify it. Two reasons are given for this.

The first reason: bittul depends on what is in a person's heart

"Because they were concerned that bittul depends on people's thoughts and attitudes, and perhaps a person who has chametz worth several thousand will not take it seriously enough to renounce ownership. Even though with his mouth he says that it should be nullified and ownerless and considered like dust, nevertheless his heart does not think so, and he does not nullify it wholeheartedly, and so he transgresses on account of it, since he has not removed it from his house."
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 2)

• The concern: Hefker depends entirely on the heart. A person who has expensive merchandise in his house, say a storeroom of whiskey or costly beers, says with his mouth that he is renouncing ownership, but his renunciation is not a complete one, and it turns out that the chametz remains his and remains in his house.
• The solution: On top of the bittul, we obligate him to actually remove the chametz from the house.

The second reason: he may forget and come to eat it

"And furthermore, since people are accustomed to it all year long, if it is in his house and in his possession we decree lest he forget and come to eat it. Therefore Chazal instituted that even though he nullifies it, that does not suffice; rather he must search for it and destroy it from the world."
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 2)

• The force of habit: A person is used all year long to eating chametz and drinking beer with his meal, and over the seven days of Pesach it is hard to break the habit.
• The example: If the drink is standing in a corner of the house, guests will show up in the middle of Pesach, and for one moment he will forget and serve them from it.

Why biur alone is not enough

"And nevertheless he must also nullify it, lest he not search properly."
(Mishnah Berurah, s.k. 2)

• The concern with the bedikah: A person may get lazy and not check under the closet, because bending down is hard for him, and chametz is left there.
• What the bittul accomplishes: If he did not nullify, that chametz under the closet is his chametz and he transgresses on account of it. Once he adds bittul as well, he is covered from every side.

The practical sequence

• The bedikah is the start of the process: The search on the night of the fourteenth is not the end of the matter. Its purpose is to locate the chametz and gather it in one place.
• The biur the next morning: The chametz that was found is destroyed the following day, and nowadays the custom is to burn it.

(The continuation of the siman, "Every person should be careful not to begin any work," as well as the laws of bedikah in the Mishnah Berurah, were deferred to a later session.)

In passing · Selling chametz to a non-Jew

A question was raised: after all, there is mechiras chametz, the sale of chametz, so neither biur nor bittul should be necessary. It was clarified that this is a topic of its own, and it is not what the Shulchan Aruch and Mishnah Berurah are discussing here.

• Its source in the Gemara: Selling chametz to a non-Jew is mentioned in the Gemara, but not as a recommended course of action. The Gemara tells of a person who sold his chametz to a non-Jew, or gave it to him as a gift with no intention of getting it back, and it rules that the sale is effective and the gift is effective. There is no instruction in the Gemara that on erev Pesach one sells his chametz to a non-Jew.
• The Gemara's assumption: The Gemara took for granted that a person destroys his chametz, and it makes no difference how much it is worth, just as a person lays out considerable money for other mitzvos, such as a pair of tefillin bought once in a generation.
• How the practice developed: The need arose with factories, some four or five hundred years ago, when mass production began. You cannot tell a food plant to burn down all its warehouses, and the same applies to an army holding a large stock of field rations (unless kosher-for-Pesach rations are prepared in advance).
• The extension to individuals: Once the sale was permitted for factories, individuals said that if it works for a factory it works for them too, and from then on it spread, until today chametz is even sold over the internet.
• The standing of the practice: Mechiras chametz is not a halachah given to Moshe at Sinai. It is brought in the Shulchan Aruch, but it does not appear in the Rishonim.
• The practical guidance: There is nothing forbidden here, but it is preferable to make an effort not to need the sale, since this is not what the Torah was after. The Torah wanted a person not to have chametz. A Jewish home should manage its shopping intelligently; one can already start calculating from Tu BiShvat, so that when Pesach comes only a little is left over, not a valuable stockpile.
• A case where selling does make sense: Some people sell not because of a package of noodles or biscuits, but out of concern about the bedikah itself, for instance an elderly man who cannot bend down and check under the closet and worries that his grandson may have left a candy there.
• Weighing the circumstances: These things vary with the times and with the person. Someone storing food in his home for an extended period, for example during a war, has good reason to arrange a mechiras chametz.

(There are those whose custom is to send only foods that are kosher for Pesach in their mishloach manos on Purim.)

Bal tashchis where the item is forbidden

• There is no bal tashchis: When the Torah forbids something for eating, destroying it involves no bal tashchis, no prohibition of wanton destruction, since destroying it is a mitzvah.
• Examples: Orlah fruits are thrown out, even though today, in appearance and in taste, there is no difference between them and permitted fruit. So too with an animal that turned out to be a neveilah, where large quantities of meat are discarded at the slaughterhouse.

In passing · The status of flour on Pesach

• Flour is not chametz: Strictly speaking it is permitted to keep a sack of flour in the house. The proof: in earlier times matzos were baked every day from the flour that was in the house, and people did not buy matzos for all the days of Pesach the way we do today.
• The practical concerns: Flour stored in a damp place picks up some moisture and may become chametz. Some also argue that today the wheat is washed before milling, to make the milling easier.
• "Milled after Pesach": For these reasons people are particular to use flour that was milled after Pesach, out of concern that flour milled before Pesach had water fall on it or had other things mixed into it. It all depends on the supervision.
• Selling the sack of flour: Because of these concerns, the practice outside Eretz Yisrael was to sell the sacks of flour, even though as a matter of basic law flour is not chametz.

In passing · Soft matzos and the matzos of our day

• The proof from the Gemara: The Gemara tells of a person who searched his house and found a loaf and did not know whether it was chametz or matzah, and likewise the case of the weasel that dragged off a loaf. Nowadays there is no such thing as a person unable to tell matzah from chametz, and from here we see that the matzos were something like a pita.
• Hillel's korech: In the Haggadah we ask what Hillel used to do: he would wrap. With the hard matzos of our day you cannot wrap; you can only cut and make a kind of sandwich. Korech means something like a laffa, the way the Yemenites do it to this day.
• What soft matzos are: Matzos that can be folded, exactly as their name suggests. In our generation there are people who make them.
• The matter of gebrokts: Once the matzah has been baked properly (meaning the dough was put into the oven within the allotted time, and the accepted definition is eighteen minutes from the mixing of the water and the flour), it can no longer become chametz, even if one soaks it in water or in milk. In this there is no difference between soft matzah and hard matzah.
• The basis of the stringency of gebrokts: The concern is that a bit of unbaked flour remained in a corner or in a fold, and when it meets water it will become chametz. This is a remote concern, and for that reason people make an effort not to eat folded matzos.
• Why soft matzos fell out of use: A soft matzah hardens after three days and is worth nothing, so people had no choice but to bake during Pesach itself, and hence the concern about chimutz during the baking. Today, with a refrigerator or freezer, one can prepare soft matzos on erev Pesach and warm them up throughout the entire festival.
• The debate in our times: Some Ashkenazi rabbanim are stringent in this matter. On the other hand, in our generation the subject has been revived, among other reasons because it is difficult for elderly people with no teeth to eat hard matzos.
• Ground matzah and matzah meal: Ground matzah is already mentioned in the Gemara, and matzah meal was born of that very same need.

(Some argue that with daily home baking it was hard to keep within the time limits, and some challenge the validity of machine matzah. These matters cannot be resolved here, and it is not worth getting into them.)