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Does One Have to Clean The House
If Traveling Before Pesah?
Rabbi Joshua Kulp
Today, many Jews observe Pesah by traveling to another destination before the holiday, to Israel or to some other vacation area, where they will be able to celebrate the Seder without all of the cooking and cleaning at home. This raises the question of whether one must clean one’s home and perform a thorough search for hametz before leaving. Before we examine the relevant material, it is important to note that the way hametz is commonly sold today did not exist before the 17th/18th century. Talmudic discussions also rarely mention “nullification” of hametz. However, unlike the sale of hametz, nullification is mentioned in the Talmud and is integrated into most medieval discussions of biur hametz (we will return to this subject in a later essay).
The issue of leaving home before Pesah is addressed by Rav Yehudah in a source that appears on Pesahim 6a (the source originates in Tosefta Pesahim 1:4): “One who sets sail, or one who departs in a caravan; if he did so thirty days prior to Pesah, he need not destroy the hametz from his possession. If he departs within thirty days of Pesah, he must destroy the hametz.”
According to the simple reading of this halakhah, if one leaves home thirty days before Pesah and she leaves hametz in her home, she need not be concerned about destroying. The Talmud limits this to a case where the person does not come back either before or during Pesah (there is a dispute about this between Rashi and the Rambam). But nevertheless, the rule is surprising–how can it be legal to own hametz on Pesah just because one is nowhere near someone’s home? What about the prohibition of “hametz shall not be found in one’s home during Pesah, called בל ימצא in rabbinic literature?
We can answer this question both through the lens of critical talmudic study and the lens of the rishonim, the early traditional talmudic commentators. The Tosefta referenced above reads almost the same as the Bavli, with one critical difference: “One who departs with a caravan or sets sail on a ship more than thirty days [before Passover] does not need to search [for hametz].” The Tosefta refers to “searching for hametz” and not “destroying hametz.” The Bavli explains that thirty days before Pesah, one begins to ask about and teach the laws of Pesah. From this point onward, one must begin to make sure that hametz will be destroyed before Pesah comes. Pesach should be on one’s mind within thirty days of the beginning of the holiday. This is Pesah time–to this day, once Purim is over, Pesah is on the horizon. However, if one leaves earlier than that, one need not check for hametz. Pesach is still out of sight and out of mind. However, it is possible that according to the Tosefta, if one knew there was hametz at home, she would have to remove it before leaving.
This critical solution does not work in the Bavli which explicitly says that if one leaves more than thirty days before Pesah and intends to be away for all of Pesah, there is no need to destroy the hametz. The rishonim find the idea that one would be out traveling the world on Pesah while still owning hametz at home to be completely untenable. To solve the problem, they muster up the solution of mental nullification–”bitul hametz.” Virtually every medieval commentary that addresses the scenario adds in that when the fourteenth of Pesah comes, one must nullify the hametz. For instance, the Sefer Ha-Ittur, a 12th century work from Provence, writes, “[If he leaves] prior to thirty days, he need not destroy [the hametz in his home] and when the time comes, he nullifies it.” Problem solved.
The Talmud is quite clear that if the person leaves less than thirty days before Pesah, she must check the house and destroy the hametz. However, as I stated above, the practice of de rigueur selling of hametz did not exist prior to a couple of hundred years ago. Even in the generations following the Shulkhan Arukh, the practice had not evolved to where it is now. But today, most Jews sell their hametz before Pesah. Do they need to also perform a check for hametz even though they are leaving there all of their hametz? Rav Eliezer Melamed, the author of Peninei Halakhah, one of the most popular halakhic works in modern Israel, cites lenient and stringent opinions on the question. Those who are lenient point out that since the house is technically owned by a non-Jew already on erev Pesah, the Jewish owner need not check for any hametz that is found in it. But those who are stringent point out that once the thirty day mark arrives, there is a personal obligation for the Jew to check her home. Furthermore, a person should not try to avoid this mitzvah. Rav Melamed advises people not to fully take advantage of this leniency. One should sell most of the rooms of one’s house but leave one room unsold so that in that room she can perform the mitzvah of bedikah before she leaves for her vacation.
Rav Melamed’s suggestion highlights a central tension that I will address consistently in these essays. The roots of the laws of searching and destroying for hametz arose in a world in which bittul (nullification) was not fully integrated into the halakhic system and selling hametz did not yet exist as a standard practice. The practice of searching and destroying hametz is deeply entrenched in the Jewish observance of Pesah. Indeed, in some ways, the fourteenth of Nissan is a holiday in and of itself. It is the day in which we ritually search for and destroy hametz. While these practices can be avoided through nullification and selling, the question really is–what is Pesah without them?
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