Page 12 - Harlem Pesach Companion 2021

A Spiritual Bedikat Chametz

By Jonathan Zuckerman

Fire. Darkness.

These are the two things that enter my mind when I think about
B’dikat Chametz growing up. I have a distinct visual of my
whole family moving from room to room of our house, our
entire route lit only by a single candle carried around by my
Mom. When it came my turn, I would use a feather to sweep the
chametz onto a wooden spoon, and then place it in a paper bag,
making sure I got every last crumb.

Year after year I would always feel the same emotions during B’dikat Chametz;
excitement to partake in the game of searching for something hidden, familiar dread as I
knew I would not be able to eat some of my favorite foods for eight full days, and
anticipation for the Seders featuring my entire extended family - sometimes 30+ people -
with the first Seder held at our house the following night. Admittedly, on some level I
knew those were not the things I was supposed to be focusing on, and as I grew up, I
began to wonder about the deeper meaning of this strange ritual.

According to the Torah, the commandment for B’dikat Chametz states: “But by the first
day all chametz shall have been removed from your home.” The penalty for consuming
chametz during Pesach, found in Shemot 12:19, is one of the most serious punishments
under Jewish law: “karet,” or being spiritually cut off from G-d. This is a penalty
reserved for sexual violations, ritual impurities, and those who refuse to enter into the
covenant with G-d through Brit Milah. As a child, it was hard for me to wrap my head
around the seriousness of the ceremony. We eat leavened bread the other 357 days of the
year. Yet eating leavened bread - even one bite - during these 8 days specifically is
punishable by something equal to death (according to some). Why is the punishment so
severe for something so seemingly innocuous?

Rabbi Schneur Zalman stated that this ritual is not simply about the removal of physical
leavened bread from our homes, but also the removal of “spiritual leaven—self-inflating
pride—from every ‘recess and crevice’” of our souls. Rabbi David Ben Zimra similarly
states that “chametz on Pesach is an allusion to the Yetzer Ha-Ra (one’s inclination to do
evil)…” and that “the laws of chametz are similar to, and even more severe than, the laws
of Avoda Zara (pagan worship).” Once this symbolism of chametz is taken into account,
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