Halachot of Pesach 5786

You guys know all the halachot for Pesach? No. All the halachot for Pesach? Yeah. In 5 minutes? Yeah. Okay. Okay, so this is what you have to do. So, tomorrow b'ezrat Hashem we're going to put this shiur online so you could watch it again, but I'll give you all of the halachot for Pesach in uh I think anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes. This is the minimum of minimum. Meaning, there's obviously a lot more details, but this you do all of what I say, you're good. Okay? This is halachot of Pesach. Now, first and foremost, the month of Nisan. The month of Nisan, from Rosh Chodesh Nisan until the end of Nisan, there's something called birkat ha'ilanot. The fruit trees that grow. So, if someone that sees a fruit tree, the beginning of the fruit starting to grow, you have to do a blessing of birkat ha'ilanot if you're seeing two fruits grow. That's the source of that is Shulchan Aruch 226 seif aleph or the Gemara Masechet Berachot page 43b. I'll give you sources so you know where all of this is coming from and chas v'shalom you don't think it's my idea or some stringency or something. So, birkat ha'ilanot, that's one thing. That's the easy part. If you have it, good. You don't have it, then you're patur. Second thing is hag'alat kelim. Hag'alat kelim means that if you're going to use the same utensils as you did for the rest of the year, let's say for example, you use the same pots, same pots and pans as you did for the rest of the year, it has to go to hag'alat kelim. If you cooked warm things in them, you stew and things of that nature that are meat, then you have to go to something called libun. Libun is usually the Jewish communities, all Jewish communities have at least one or two or 10 people that do this libun, which is they burn they burn the actual pot all over again with a blowtorch to make sure that they reopen all of the holes within that metal to remove all of the chametz from out of it. If you're going to use the same thing. Today, baruch Hashem, on one end it's very easy to get brand new and number two, baruch Hashem, most of Am Yisrael is in a decent financial shape that you can get, you know, a brand new or at least enough for the chag set of pots and pans from Walmart or from Amazon for 30 bucks. So, most people don't do this libun, but in case you want to use the same pots and pans, you have to do this libun where you use this blowtorch to make the things that you cooked hot things in with libun. If you cooked if you made things that were cold, then it has to go to hag'alah. Hag'alah means that you have to put it in boiling water. You have to put this this whatever tool that you're using in boiling water. And this is hag'alat kelim. Hag'alat kelim, hag'alah comes from the source of removing something foreign. We get this from Parshat Bechukotai, the uh uh um Sefer Vayikra, chapter 26 verse 11. Hashem is Hashem says to Am Yisrael, "Velo tigaal nafshi etchem." Don't do something. Don't bring something foreign into yourself to the point where I'm disgusted by you because of this foreign object, this something foreign that you're doing. So, on Pesach we're not allowed to bring the rest of the year with us. Pesach we start new. Don't make Hashem disgusting. Dis- disgusted. So, the hag'alat kelim is if you use the same things. Now, for Sefardim, for Sefardim, anyone that's Sefardic, which I'm assuming is almost everybody here, there's a very big leniency when you're using glass. So, glass cups and glass uh plates, you do not need to kosher them. You could actually use them all year round for Pesach and for out of Pesach. You don't have to do anything. If you're Sefardic. If you're Ashkenazi, you have to do the same thing as what your tradition is. Now, you can't be just Ashkenazi on Pesach or just Sefardi on Pesach and the rest of the year different. This is by the way one of the arguments that I forgot, baruch Hashem, I learned it again today, is one of the arguments when it comes to this wigs craziness that people say, "Yeah, but such and such rabbi says it's allowed." Yes, the reality is even if what he says it's right, you're still not allowed to do it. Why? Even if what it's wrong what he says, but even if what he says is right, you're still not allowed to use it. Why? He's not your rabbi. You're not allowed to use multiple rabbis. You can't say, "I'm Rav Ovadia all the way except this." There's a Gemara in Masechet Rosh Hashanah page 14. It says, "If somebody takes all of the leniencies of Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, he's a rasha." You can't use the leniencies of both houses. What if he does the chumras? He takes all of the stringencies of Beit Shammai and all of the stringencies of Beit Hillel. It says, "Al lo yakatuv bo omer, on him it's writ- it's written, 'The fool will walk blind.'" The fool will walk blind. You can't use two poskim. You can't use two houses. If you're Rav Ovadia, Rav Ovadia all the way. If you're Rav Elyashiv, Rav Elyashiv all the way. Rav Babi Chaim, Rav Babi Chaim, whatever it is, one rabbi. You can't pick and choose rabbi. It's not uh it's not a uh trick-or-treat bag. It's a you have one rabbi. So, this also another thing. Next thing is cleaning out chametz. Cleaning out chametz also is mentioned in the Torah. It's removing all of the leavened bread from the house, all of the things that are chametz, whether it's pasta or other things like that, remove it. Now, disposing of the chametz comes from the Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim siman 433. It says that to get rid of the chametz is there's a couple of ways of doing it. Number one, if it's opened, if it's open type of chametz, it's an open box of pasta, it's an open candy, it's open potato chips or some other chips or something that's chametz, that's not a sellable item. You have to throw it out. Unless it's very very expensive uh whiskey or wine or something like that, which people traditionally preserve over an extended period of time. If it's like a bag of some snack, that's not something that usually people keep. That stuff you you go and you burn it. You burn it during the uh time where they actually burn out the chametz, which is you which is the day the Pesach eve during the day. Now, the uh the stuff that is um brand new, you know, people buy more than they need. They go to Costco, Walmart, all these places. They buy more than they actually need so they don't have to go to the store all the time. That stuff you sell. What do you mean sell? Do you have to remove it out of the house? No, you make one place in your house, a closet, you put all of the chametz there that's still brand new. You seal it or you put something on there so nobody opens it. You go to your local rabbi, you tell him, "I want to sell my chametz." He's going to ask you, "Where is it located in the house?" You're going to define where it's located. It's in the closet here, in the kitchen, and da da da da da. All the chametz stays there throughout the entire chag. You're not allowed to open this closet or whatever you put it into, and you sign a agreement with the rabbi that you sold the chametz. He's going to sell that chametz to some for the duration of the chag. After the chag is over, the chametz now goes back to you as your own your own chametz. But this chametz is brand new stuff. It's not like beastly bags that you ate half of them. It's stuff that really if you really had to sell it, somebody would buy it. No one's going to buy a half a eaten bag of beastly and a half a Snicker bar. So, be realistic with yourself. You know, if it's something real that's really it's brand new, it's technically resellable, that the store would take back, then that's something that you keep and you sell the chametz. After you sold the chametz, then you have to check for chametz. Whatever after you sold it and you burned it and everything else, so the night before Pesach you have to check for chametz. Now, the Rav Ovadia says that in this day and age even though in the original Shulchan Aruch siman 433 and also it says that you should do it with a uh feather and you should do it with a candle, he says today's age it's uh it's okay to do it even with a flashlight. You even do it with a flashlight instead of a candle cuz sometimes the candle fire could be very dangerous with the carpets and so on that we have today. So, you can use a flashlight to check for chametz. Now, the minhag, there is a machlokes, there's a debate whether this minhag is a good one or a bad one, but the minhag is is to if you know you cleaned the house and you know there's probably not chametz, but the minhag is is that one member of the family, the the wife, is going to hide 10 bags of chametz somewhere in the house and the husband, and if he has kids, he brings the kids along with him, to show him to go find the chametz on his own without her telling him. Now, she has to know where she put it. She has to write it down cuz in case he didn't find it, she has to find it. She has to get rid of it. But the point is is that to show that at least he exerted all effort to find the chametz, that's the minhag, that's the custom. The reason why some people say it's not a good custom is because some people forget where they hid stuff and it stays in their house. So, they have chametz in their house. So, whoever's hiding it has to write down where they hid it. And usually they do 10 things. You put it in a Ziploc bag, you put a little piece of pita or some type of bread in a Ziploc bag and you somebody hides it in in a different spots in the house. And that's the minhag. It's very very fun for little kids to do it also with parents, whoever has kids. Now, the Shulchan Aruch in in chapter 445a says you have to burn the chametz. Like I said, usually most of the Jewish congregations usually have one or two different congregations that have a big barrel where they have a fire where people throw their chametz in there. That's the burn the chametz that's not sellable. After about 10:00 a.m., you have to check your local time because it's based on when the sun comes down and sun comes up. It depends on your time. In New York it's different than in Florida and so on. There's usually around 10:00 a.m. Usually around 10:00 a.m. the night of Pesach, before the hag begin, around 10:00 a.m. you're no longer to eat chametz. You know, even though the hag doesn't officially start till later on. The seder is not till the night. You're no longer allowed to eat chametz as around 10:00 a.m. You have to check the exact time locally. Also, also, you're also if you're a firstborn Jew, if you're a firstborn, you have to fast. You have to fast all the way until the seder. But there is a little trick to get out of it. The trick to get out of that fast. How? You go to a beit knesset that has somebody finishing a masechet, finishing a tractate of Gemara. If you listen to him finish the tractate of Gemara, you don't have to uh fast because you can be part of the seudat mitzvah. No, if you're a firstborn, you have to fast. Firstborn, you both have to fast, but it's easier to go find somebody finishing a masechet because there's plenty of synagogues that have people finishing masechet on Pesach. It's a very known tradition. Uh also at around noon, again you have to check the exact time. At around noon, you're no longer allowed to work. So if you have a business or you work for somebody or something like that, you have to finish before that. You're not allowed to work anymore. Even though the hag officially starts later on, the seder is later on and so on, as of noon, regardless of what day of the week the hag falls on, you cannot work anymore. Can't work in the stock market, can't work in the phone place, can't work anymore. Pretty much your hag as far as no work part are no longer allowed. Yeah. What if? Then you quit. Not allowed to work. Call in sick. Call in sick. If you were sick, you would tell you to still work? Okay, so call in sick. Call in sick. I'm sick today. I have a stomachache. My Or you can just tell my doctor told me not to work. Okay, so you can tell my doctor told me not to work. Which doctor? The Rambam. The Rambam was a doctor. Okay? My doctor told me not to work. The Rambam was a doctor. Permit. So it's true. So you're not lying. See? Good. Good. You gave me remind me. So you're not lying. You tell him the truth. The Rambam told you not to work. But you don't tell him it's Rambam. You tell him his doctor told me not to work. So that's it. You have to find a new job if that's going to risk your job. If to not work for a few hours is going to risk your job, you have to find a new job. Because it's not a normal job. No normal person which fires somebody for not being able to show up. That's just a it's a it's freedom of religion by the way. By the way, if anybody fire you, you could sue them. It's it's called freedom of religion. It's actually a right in America for that. If that person was a Muslim and they told him, "Listen, I'm not working because it's our Ramadan. It's our uh whatever it is." The guy if the guy even peeps the wrong way, looks at her the wrong way or him the wrong way, she could sue for millions, close down the business. It's called freedom of religion. So you don't have any excuses, Baruch Hashem, and trust me, if you do what Hashem wants, he'll make it so. So no more working after noon. Again, check the exact time. You're also not allowed to eat matzah. Not matzah shmurah, not matzah ashira, but not matzah regilah. So what do you eat throughout the whole day until the seder? You could eat chicken, you could eat meat, you could eat fruit, you could eat eggs, you could eat everything else except bread and matzah. You cannot eat. This is again Shulchan Aruch 471B. All of these have sources. Now, to prepare for the seder is not just showing up, Rabbotai. Don't just show up to the seder because the responsibility of the seder has a few different things. First off, eating matzah is not like we thought most of our life. As long as you take a bite, you're finished. Take a bite. You're supposed to eat matzah four times during the seder and drink wine four times during the seder. Take a little sip, take a little bite, you're finished. That's not that's not right. The actual halakha is is you you have to eat each time each time they say you have to eat matzah, you have to eat 30 g, 30 g of matzah. Now if you're going to use the square matzah, 30 g of matzah is unfortunately it's like almost more than one. It's like one and a half of them. It's a lot. You have to eat this four times. So what a lot of people do is they eat tfera. Tfera is something that the Yemenites and a few other Sephardics have, which is like a soft matzah. It's a soft matzah. And the reason why they eat it, aside from it being tasting a little bit better for some people, it's also more worth it because tfera because it's thick, it's almost like pita, but it's kosher for Pesach, it's thicker. So 30 g of this tfera is literally just one tiny little slice. So you don't have to eat so much of this matzah and not be able to eat the rest of the delicious food that's going to be available on the seder. But in general, you're supposed to prepare yourself four servings, four servings of 30 g of matzah, whichever matzah you pick. Yeah. Who? The tfera? Why not? Different custom? Who? You're Sephardi, aren't you? It's not a custom. It's it's it's your your your Sephardi. It's not the the the the the the Av Bet Din of Yerushalayim, Rav Gedaliah ben Moshe, has a whole place where every year he makes tfera. It's not everybody's tradition. He's the Av Bet Din. He's the head dayan in all of Yerushalayim. He makes it for people of all types. So obviously it's a it's not a you're just excluded for just people that come from Yemen or Morocco or something like that. No, if you want to eat it, you can eat it. There's no problem with it. The second thing is that you have to make yourself Make sure that you have four servings of 3 oz of wine or 3 oz of grape juice. It's better wine, but if you have grape juice, that's fine, too. But it's four servings of it. Four servings of it. And also two servings of maror. Maror is lettuce, Roman lettuce. Now the uh the servings of the lettuce, the maror, is kazayit. So it's a relatively small piece. Make sure that it's not only a good size, but it's also has no bugs. Because if you eat maror, if you eat the lettuce and it has even a single bug on it, it's better off you didn't do the whole seder. Cuz each time you eat a bug, it's six different sins from the Torah. So it doesn't matter how many guests you have. You have five guests or you have 5,000 guests, you have to make sure that you know for sure that whoever is monitoring, it's not some catering company. You're monitoring it, you know for sure somebody knows what they're doing when they're washing the lettuce one by one against the light with salt and so on to make sure there's no bugs in the lettuce. And they unfold it because if there's one bug in your lettuce, your entire seder has become one big sin. It's not impossible. It's not impossible. This is not actually not even difficult. It's just that people are lazy. People are lazy. So wash the lettuce. It's not impossible. Now during the afternoon, one of the reasons why you can't work is because you have to rest. You have to rest during the afternoon. Take a nap for a couple of hours. And the reason why is because the biggest mitzvah of the seder, the biggest mitzvah of the seder is not the matzah. It's not the wine. It's not the afikoman. It's not even sitting down with your family. The biggest mitzvah of the seder is the maggid. The maggid is going over the entire story of the Exodus. Now what? The Exodus to say that Am Yisrael was in Egypt, Hashem took us out of Egypt, he split the sea, finished, takes 5 seconds. No, no, no. We're talking about all of the midrashim, all the things you know, all of the things you're going to start studying now about what happened in the behind the the the scenes. If you don't have the books, get them. If you don't have the ability to get them, watch my shiurim. I have it online. Just type in Yaron Reuven Exodus or you could just send me a text and I'll send it to you. It shows you different details of what happened with each one of the plagues, what happened in Egypt, what happened at Yam Suf. There's a lot of midrashim, a lot of details of behind the scenes of what happened. And we need to know these things. We need to know where we came from. That's the biggest mitzvah in all of Pesach. Why? Because the maggid, you have to do it during dinner, after you finish dinner, and until you fall asleep. Until you have no power at all and you fall asleep. There's no talking about baseball. There's no talking about basketball or Bitcoin or shmitcoin or Pokémon, none of that. It's only Yetziat Mitzrayim. That's all you talk about. And if you have to bring bring a book. Now, what if you're with a bunch of people and they start falling asleep? She went to sleep, he went to sleep, he went to sleep, but you're still up. What do you have to do? You keep going. Who are you teaching? Yourself. You keep going. That's the biggest mitzvah of Pesach. The maggid. Why? Know where you came from. Know where you came from. It's very entertaining and usually the family loves it. So the the haggadah, make sure you have enough haggadot for all of your company, whoever's coming over. If they need English reading, make sure they have English. Be polite. Make sure if they speak a certain language, make sure you have an Haggadah for them in their language. Don't be one of these people where you expect everybody to speak Hebrew. Everybody's going to speak your language. Okay? And also, if you have a guest if you have a guest that doesn't speak your language, you cannot speak your language next to him. It's not polite. It's not polite to do that. If you guys speak if you have 10 people, they all speak Hebrew and one guy comes in, you invited him to the house and he doesn't speak Hebrew, you can't speak Hebrew amongst each other. It's not nice. It's not nice to speak Hebrew amongst each other. Why? He thinks you're talking about him. And by the way, realistically, you probably are. Cuz if you didn't, you would talk in English. So, the real you have to learn learn that having a seder having people over is also having manners. Having manners. We can't make people uncomfortable because they don't know or they're new or they don't speak the same language. You have to speak in a common language to people. Make sure that if you're not comfortable speaking online, don't invite them. Invite somebody else. So, the seder has you have to say the Haggadah, go over the Haggadah. Also, there's the obligation is to say the Hallel. The Hallel is the same thing like you say during Rosh Chodesh. You have to say the Hallel. When you eat the matzah and when you drink, we're almost done. When you eat the matzah and when you drink the wine, you have to do an aseiva. Aseiva means you have to lay down. And And what Each one of us have to you have to bring a pillow. You have to bring a pillow and lay on the pillow like you're lounging like a king or a queen. Now, if a man forgot to do it, he just ate the matzah, he drank the wine, he forgot to go like this, then he has to do it again. If a woman forgot it, she could she could skip it. It doesn't matter. She doesn't have to do it. Why? Because it's not too modest for her to do it in the beginning with. So, she did it once, good. She didn't do it, she doesn't have to. Now, you have to leave yourself I know there's going to be a big dinner, a lot of food, especially us Jews, we like food. So, you have to understand during dinner, don't eat to the point where you're about to explode. Eat just a little bit before. Why? You still have to have room for the afikoman. You have to eat the afikoman. That has to be the last thing your your mouth tastes for the night. You cannot eat anything else. So, don't do birkat hamazon until you're ready to pretty much call it a night. Cuz you're not going to eat anymore. There's no more eating after that. No candy, no fruit, no nothing. After dinner and afikoman, you're finished. So, that's why make sure that you're ready to finish eating for the day, even though you're probably going to be up for a while longer talking about Pesach cuz you're going to watch my shiurim and you're going to know a lot about Pesach and about Yetziat Mitzrayim. So, after the seder, like I said, continue the stories about the Exodus and then abu tayacha rim, you have completed the seder. The good news is you have to do it all exactly the same again the very next night. Very next night, brand new. Now, if you live in the exile, you have to do it again the next night. Now, what happens if you're going to Israel? What happens if you're going to Israel? You went to Israel, you're you they keep only one day over there. What do you do? Halakha is if you're moving to Israel officially, you're moving to Israel at that moment, you can be treated like an Israeli. Meaning, you keep only one day. But if you're just going to visit, you're still in the exile. You're just going to visit, you still have to keep two days even though everybody else around you is keeping one day. That's your problem. And I know it's uncomfortable and all and I know people don't like to keep this law and so on and so forth. That's Halakha. You want to change Halakha, talk to God, not me. I don't change Halakha. The difference is is that in the in the the the the new month and the calendar was based on time that was determined in Israel. Now, because they we always have atomic clocks and clocks that were very exact like we have today, the way we determine time is based on Rosh Chodesh and when the moon would show up in the sky. So, by the time it arrived in Israel, they would determine this is a new month. Now, by the time the news traveled to the exile where the exile is in Spain or in Egypt or somewhere else, it could be even a day later. Even though it was relatively a fast system because they would have a lighting system on top of mountains where the guys that would see it and say it's officially a new month, they would light a light and the guy that's in a a top of another mountain 10 miles away would see the light and he would light a light and then a guy another 10 miles away would see the light and it would travel pretty fast to the destination. It wasn't like some horse had to travel half the country. It's not like they like people think. People Obviously, it was always the geniuses. We weren't stupid ever. We were always smart. It was a very relatively smart system. But still, there's always a chance that there's a flaw in the system. There's a delay in the system. Somebody got injured, somebody got this. This could always be a delay of a day. Up to a day they give it. So, they say maybe they started the month a day late. So, because of that, their holidays in the exile, all over the exile, America, Egypt, anywhere other than the exile, must be two days. Why? So, they celebrate the main Yom Tov on the same day regardless. So, it's better that they have two Pesachs rather than starting on the wrong day of Pesach. Why? Because if you eat chametz on Pesach, it's karet. It's the worst sin in Judaism. So, it's better you keep extra than make a mistake and start it late. But in Israel, since the time is the time. So, now today we have clocks that tells exactly the time everywhere around the world. But we still keep two days. And the reason why we keep two days is because once there is a custom for Am Israel that's already generation after generation after generation for hundreds and hundreds of years, we're not allowed to change it. Honey, did you sell the chametz yet? We have less than a week until Pesach. Don't worry, I'll take care of it at shul later. Did you sell the chametz yet? No, I forgot, but I'll I'll go see the rabbi later. What I'm going to do now? Your chametz is sold. Happy Pesach.