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Getting Rid of Hametz:
It's All in Your Heart
Rabbi Joshua Kulp
On erev Pesah, having completed bedikat hametz, I generally turn the lights back on, pick up my Haggadah (available here) and recite some Aramaic words that I understand but I’m not sure anyone else does. I’m imagining it sounds a little like Kaddish to them, and they know that somehow what I’m doing helps us in some way get rid of the hametz. How so? Not clear.
The good news for my family is that what I assume is unclear to them was unclear to some of the greatest Talmudists history has ever known. To understand why this is so, we need to go back a bit and look at how the laws of “bitul”--commonly referred to in English as “nullification”--developed. As we shall see, bitul was a late bloomer.
The Mishnah and Tosefta, the earliest texts to spell out how hametz is removed or destroyed from one’s house, deal extensively with bedikat hametz (searching the house for hametz) and biur hametz (destroying hametz). The Tosefta never mentions bittul and the mishnah mentions it only once (Mishnah Pesahim 3:7). A person who is traveling to either circumcise his son, offer the pesah sacrifice or attend his own betrothal feast and remembers that he has hametz at home and cannot get back in time to destroy it without missing the event he is traveling to may continue on his way, but he should “nullify it in his heart.” At this stage, nullification is sort of a last ditch that seems to work only if he cannot actually destroy the hametz himself.
Both Talmudim begin to expand on this. Rav, in the Yerushalmi offers a recitation that expresses one’s desire to nullify the hametz and on Bavli 6b turns this into a standard practice. On Bavli 8a we learn that if there is hametz deep in a hole that cannot be reached, one should nullify it. On 31b referring to hametz covered by an avalanche, R. Hisda says it should be nullified. What is common to all of these cases is that nullification helps in some way to remove hametz that cannot be physically removed–either it was not found or it cannot be reached. Clearly, the amoraim, the early Talmudic sages still prefer physical destruction of hametz, either by burning or some other method.
But one comment by the anonymous editors of the Talmud on Bavli 4b threatens to turn this all on its head–bittul is from the Torah and bedikah (and perhaps biur) is only of rabbinic origin. The context of this statement is not crucial. What is crucial is the problem’s this causes for Talmudic commentators. If mental nullification is sufficient to fulfill the biblical command to remove hametz from one’s home, then why do we bother with bedikah and biur? And even more puzzling to them–how does this process of bittul work? What exactly are we doing when we make this recitation?
The Tosafot on 2a explain that the concern is that if one only does bittul and does not physically remove the hametz from one’s home, one might find hametz during Pesah and eat it. This is of course prohibited. The Tosafot here seem to have hit upon what might be the original reason why the Torah prohibits one to even possess hametz during Pesah–the fear is that possession might lead to eating. Thus, bittul is sufficient from a purely legal perspective–it is the fulfillment of the biblical commandment to “remove” hametz. But since this form of removal does not distance the threat of eating hametz on Pesah, the rabbis instituted that it must be physically removed. Other medieval authorities added that if one could “get away” with just bittul, there is a concern that one might say the formula without really meaning it. Bittul without inner conviction does not work, and therefore it would turn out that the person had transgressed the biblical commandment.
The bigger dispute among rishonim is how bittul works? What does it even mean to “nullify” hametz? What are we thinking and saying in this process? The Tosafot on 4b explain that “bittul” is like declaring something ownerless. The rabbis rule in many places that one does not transgress by seeing hametz that belongs to others, and therefore if one declares hametz ownerless, he is not transgressing the biblical commandment. The Tosafot, or those who followed in their footsteps, enshrined this in the bittul formulation, where to this day we say, “let it be ownerless (הפקר) like the dust of the earth.”
The Ramban goes to town against the Tosafot, as he usually does to his opponents, and cites multiple problems with their understanding of bittul. Perhaps the strongest one is if bittul is a form of making something ownerless, hefker, then why is it called bittul? The Ramban therefore offers his own understanding of bittul. The best phrase he uses to explain how this works is as follows:
One who performs only verbal nullification has fulfilled his duty, for this declaration removes it from being considered hametz, since the person is stating that he wishes to treat it as prohibited, and he does not want it to exist, and he wants to view it as dust that cannot be eaten.
The Ramban’s formulation seems to me to best encapsulate the way this declaration works in the real world. The formulation is recited twice, once at night and once in the morning. It immediately follows the two main ritual acts we do to rid our homes of hametz–bedikah at night and biur (usually done through burning) in the morning. While the declaration did not originate as an act demonstrating kavanah, intent, it seems to function that way. The person declares that their intent was to find and destroy all the hametz that was in their possession, and if they have failed, they are declaring that they have no desire to be in possession of any unfound hametz. And while in his gloss on the Shulkhan Arukh, the Rema rules that the person must understand what they are saying, the Mishnah Berurah chimes in that as long as the reciter has a general understanding, they have fulfilled their duty.
So to return to my own practice, after I read the statement in Aramaic, I read it again in English, to make sure that my family understands what we are doing. Now I would love to then go into a shiur with them about the Tosafot’s dispute with the Ramban, but as you might imagine, there are other things to be done around the house the night before Pesah.
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