Ask The Rabbi

Ask The Rabbi

category:  Chassidut

Exodus 13:7

The Rav Name: Rabbi Yitzchak Arad

shmot 13:7 it says ולא יראה לך
What does this LITERALLY mean? Does it mean chametz should not be “seen” with you? If not, what is the shoresh for יראה
and what does that shoresh mean?

Shalom and thank you for your question! Yes, when the verse in Shmot 13:7 states that no leaven ‘shall be seen with you’ it means it quite literally. Many many Jewish people go to very great lengths in order to keep this commandment. The entire household is cleaned in the weeks (or days if someone is very pressed for time) before the Passover holiday and thoroughly checked for any leaven.

Leaven includes any food made from five specific types of grain. These are:

Wheat

Barley

Oats

Rye

and spelt.

Any food made from the above-mentioned grains is considered leaven and must not be in the possession of a Jew on Passover. Matzot however are made from wheat, so how does that fit in?(Today one can find Matzot made from spelt also, or from oats. There are non-gluten oat Matzot also.)  Matzot are specifically made in a manner that ensures that the dough is made and baked within 18 minutes so that there is no time for it to ferment and thus become leaven. Matzot made in this way are called ‘kosher for Pesach’ and not only MAY be used on Pesach but SHOULD be used, especially on the first night of Passover, because that is what Jewish people are commanded to do on Passover.

At what point are we commanded to eat Matzot? On the Seder night – the first evening of Passover? Or all seven days of the festival in Israel,  or all eight days of the festival outside of Israel?

These questions are the subject of much discussion in the Talmud and commentaries.

We were actually commanded to eat Matzo on the eve of the fifteenth of the Hebrew month Nissan, which was before we left Egypt. (Exodus 12:18, “In the evening you shall eat Matzot.”) The Haggadah – the text that is recited, explained and discussed at the Seder, teaches that the reason we eat Matzot at the Seder since the original Exodus (Matzo is singular and Matzot or Matzos is the plural form of the word,) is because we were in a hurry to leave Egypt and the dough did not have time to rise. There are more reasons for eating Matzo on the Seder night, and much discussion as to what is the significance of all these reasons. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi explains that the Matzo before the Exodus from Egypt and the Matzo that was taken by the Jews as unbaked dough when they left Egypt can be described as Matzo of Obligation and Matzo of Revelation, which are both signified by the Matzo that we eat on the Passover festival. The fact that the Jews were able to leave the country that no slave had ever succeeded in escaping, was indeed a revelation of G-dliness.

On a deeper level, Matzo represents humility, since it is flat and not ‘puffed up’ – like a proud person. (Proud in a negative way.) Leavened bread IS puffed up, and thus represents negative pride, in the context of Passover and the Exodus from Egypt. We are enjoined to remove spiritual ‘leaven’ – to endeavor to achieve a little more humility each Passover…

The prohibition against eating leavened food on Passover is very serious. Jews are commanded not only not to eat leaven, but not to possess it. To this end, Jewish law provides a halachically acceptable way (acceptable according to Jewish law) to deal with possessions that contain leavened food and would cause financial loss if disposed of before Passover. We are allowed to sell them to a non-Jew for the duration of the festival. What this means practically speaking is that a person who owns a food store or chain of stores,  or a private home owner, conduct an official sale through an orthodox Rabbi who serves as an agent to sell the leavened possessions to a non-Jew who is informed of all the conditions of the sale and commits to selling those possessions back to the Jew as soon as Passover is over.

A contract form which details the whereabouts of the leavened food (known as Chametz or Chometz,) is signed.


The Jewish-owned home or store (or dormitory room) is cleaned and checked,  as mentioned above,  and the chametz possessions are sealed off and clearly labeled as ‘sold’ so that nobody will transgress the prohibition against owning chametz.

‘No leaven shall be seen with you’ is thus an instruction that we must try to fulfill in a physical way, which influences our spiritual make-up and helps connect us to G-d.

Sources