📋 Shiur Overview
Summary of the Shiur: Laws of Chametz and Matzah Chapter 5 — Laws of Vessels
Overview and Structure
The shiur deals with the laws of chametz and matzah from approximately halacha 5 of chapter 5, beginning from page 100. This section discusses vessels that were used with chametz — how to make them kosher for Pesach, and which vessels cannot be made kosher at all.
Structure of the chapter: The chapter has dealt until now with: (a) which types of grain become chametz, (b) how it becomes chametz, (c) u’shemartem et hamatzot — guarding so that matzah should not become chametz, (d) laws of baking matzot, (e) matzah ashirah (mei peirot). The new section about vessels is a continuation of the topic of shemirah — one must also be careful that the vessels should not create a mixture of chametz.
Why are the laws of vessels here and not in the laws of forbidden foods? The Rambam has the laws of kashering vessels in Hilchot Ma’achalot Asurot chapter 17 (kebolo kach polto, immersion of vessels, kashering vessels from Midian). The difference: there we speak about the general law of hag’alah for all forbidden foods; here we speak specifically about chametz vessels, where there are things that are different from all forbidden foods. This is the foundation of this section.
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Halacha 1 — Earthenware Vessels Used with Chametz in Cold
Words of the Rambam
“All earthenware vessels that were used with chametz in cold — one may use them with matzah in cold. Except for vessels in which one places the se’or, or vessels in which one places charoset, which are sharp, and draw their fermentation strongly.”
Plain Meaning
An earthenware vessel that was used with chametz only in cold, may be used on Pesach for matzah in cold. But vessels in which one places se’or (sourdough) or charoset (sharp/sour things) — these may not be used on Pesach at all.
Novelties and Explanations
1) Source in the Gemara — three laws from three Amoraim (Pesachim 30b):
The Rambam builds three laws on three places in the Gemara:
– Law 1 — beit hase’or: From Shmuel’s law — “All vessels that are used with chametz in cold may be used with matzah except for beit hase’or since its fermentation is strong.”
– Law 2 — beit charoset: From Rav Ashi — “Beit charoset is also like beit hase’or since it is because of the salt which is sharp.”
– Law 3 — a vessel used with vinegar: From Rava.
All three are built on the same foundation.
2) Understanding “chamitzan kashah”:
“Chamitzan kashah” doesn’t mean that it absorbed more strongly (beli’ah), but that se’or and charoset are sour/sharp things, which penetrate more strongly into the vessel — they are “heavy chametz-makers.” This is parallel to the well-known principle that a davar charif (sharp thing) is more mavli’a. The language of the Gemara is “hoil ve’it bah kiyuha” — bole’at, betzonen nami chamtzan — a sharp thing, even cold, is considered like a hot thing that is absorbed.
3) What is a “beit hase’or”:
The Maggid Mishneh brings that a beit hase’or is the vessel where one places the se’or (the sourdough), and the dough sits there a long time until it rises. The vessel in which one kneads the dough is not the same — the dough doesn’t sit there long. But the vessel of beit hase’or constantly has se’or in it — every time one makes a challah, one puts in more, and there remains a constant absorption. Rabbeinu Yonah brings that because it sits there many times with dough and se’or, this is a good sign for chametz vessels.
4) Charoset — what does it mean:
This doesn’t mean the charoset of Pesach (which is Pesach’dik), but a year-round charoset — a sharp chametz’dik “dip” that contains chometz (vinegar). The main sharpness comes from the chometz, not from the bread itself. When one dips bread/dough into vinegar all year, this becomes a “kol davar she’yesh bo kiyuha” — the sharpness of vinegar makes even cold things absorbed like hot ones.
[Digression: Pesach charoset vs. year-round charoset] Rabbi Natan says that one makes a special mixture in remembrance of charoset. Charoset’s function is lehamtik — to remove the sharpness of maror. Charoset has a chometz kashah, a sharpness. Our custom is to make charoset sweet, but perhaps this is not the proper charoset of the Gemara.
5) A difficult question — why only matzah in cold?
If a vessel that was used with cold chametz has no absorption, why may one only place matzah in cold? One should be able to place even hot matzah items, because the vessel didn’t absorb any chametz! And if the vessel does have absorption from hot chametz, why should dry cold matzah be a problem — how can a dry hard matzah be absorbed from a clean plate?
6) Two versions in the Gemara — the version of the Rambam and the Rif:
The Maggid Mishneh brings that there are two versions:
– Our Gemara: “mishtamshin bahen matzah” — plain, without adding “betzonen.” According to this, one would think that one may use even matzah bechamim, because the chametz was never hot.
– Version of the Rambam and Rif: “mishtamshin bahen matzah betzonen” — only in cold. This means that even when the chametz was in cold, one may use matzah only in cold.
7) Explanation of the stringency in earthenware vessels — Maggid Mishneh:
The Maggid Mishneh asks: Why shouldn’t one be able to use matzah bechamim, if the chametz was only in cold? He answers: Because earthenware vessels have no remedy through hag’alah. With other vessels, even when one used chametz bechamim, one can make kosher through hag’alah. But earthenware vessels cannot be made kosher. Therefore Chazal were stringent: even when the chametz was in cold, one may not use matzah bechamim — because perhaps it once became hot and one doesn’t remember, and there is no remedy through kashering.
8) Two approaches to understanding the stringency:
– Approach A (Maggid Mishneh): Both stringencies go together — (a) chametz in cold, one may not use matzah bechamim, (b) chametz bechamim, one may not use matzah even in cold. This is a general stringency in earthenware vessels.
– Approach B (other Rishonim according to the other version): Only chametz bechamim is forbidden — then one may not use even matzah in cold, because earthenware vessels have no remedy. But chametz in cold with matzah bechamim is permitted.
9) The opinion of Rabbeinu Manoach:
Rabbeinu Manoach has a unique interpretation. He understands that the stringency is not only about absorption, but that it is a decree — perhaps when the matzah is hot, it can extract from the earthenware vessel the chametz taste, and perhaps the matzah itself becomes chametz. This is a novel approach — not only that the taste is a problem, but that the matzah itself can become defective through this.
10) The foundation: Earthenware vessels have a special stringency with chametz:
With chametz, they were stringent with earthenware vessels more than with other forbidden foods — “chametz is something terribly absorbent… even earthenware vessels they decreed upon it like other vessels, which is not so with other forbidden foods.” The main difference: with other vessels one can make kosher through hag’alah, but earthenware vessels — because they have no remedy — they added an extra level of stringency.
11) Se’or/charoset vessels — why can’t they be used at all?
Why shouldn’t one be able to even place cold matzah on such a vessel, if one washed it well? Perhaps this is not only a matter of absorption, but the vessel is as if a “symbol of chametz” — “avi avot hachametz” — but this remains an open question.
12) Practical difference — challah cover:
The challah cover/basket where one places bread all year — according to all opinions one can place Pesach matzah in it, because it is cold in cold. One only needs to clean it from crumbs, just as everything in the house needs to be cleaned. It doesn’t say that one needs to “turn it over” — only check for crumbs. It is mentioned that there is a law about “reivot shel nashim” — one checks specific folds because there are many crumbs there (Gemara Pesachim). One shouldn’t make stringencies on every leniency — “you don’t become stringent on everything that is permitted.”
13) Difference between vessels used to prepare chametz vs. vessels used after baking:
– Vessels in which one places after the chametz is already baked (cold) — this is permitted on Pesach.
– Vessels in which one prepares — where one places the flour, where one leaves the mixer — this should not be used.
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Halacha 2 — Earthenware Pit (Earthenware Tube)
Words of the Rambam
“An earthenware pit in which they would place chamim all year, one does not bake matzah in it on Pesach. But one fills it with coals, and since every place where they cook chametz in it becomes white-hot, it is permitted to cook in it.”
Plain Meaning
An earthenware pit (an earth-pot/oven-piece) that was used for chametz the whole year, one may not bake matzah in it on Pesach. But one can make it kosher by filling it with coals (glowing coals), and when the place where one cooked chametz becomes white-hot, one may then cook in it.
Novelties and Explanations
1) What is the “bor”?
Rabbeinu Manoach translates: “keli she’osin bo ofin atikim” — one takes a piece of earthenware vessel that fell from the roof (tiles/shingles), a large piece that one can place in an oven. The plain meaning is that it is an earthenware vessel that one places in an oven — like a metal or earthenware pot/plate that one places in an oven, and the challah/bread lies on it, so it won’t directly touch the oven walls. It is something between an oven and a pot (kederah).
2) Charcho mibifnim vs. charcho mibachutz:
With a closed tanur there is a difference: charcho mibifnim (white-hot from inside) — permitted; charcho mibachutz (white-hot from outside) — forbidden. The bor is heated from outside (charcho mibachutz), therefore one needs a special kashering — filling with coals from inside — in order to make white-hot the place where the chametz was.
3) Why isn’t the regular heat from baking enough?
A strong question: When one bakes matzah in the bor, the bor is on fire — why isn’t this enough to make hag’alah, according to the principle of “kebolo kach polto”? The bor is at the same level of heat as when it absorbed the chametz!
The answer: When it becomes hot from outside (charcho mibachutz), it doesn’t clean out from inside. Just making something hot itself is not enough — one needs direct heat on the place of absorption itself. With boiling water (hag’alah) it literally burns out, not just that it becomes hot. Therefore one needs filling with coals from inside.
4) The Rambam’s language change from “ofin” to “mevashel”:
The Rambam begins with “ein ofin bo et hamatzah” (baking), and ends with “mutar levashel bo” (cooking). Why does he switch from baking to cooking? In certain versions it says “le’efot” instead of “levashel” — which would be consistent. The Gemara itself says “likederah” — with a kederah one is concerned that it will break, therefore one doesn’t fill it with stones unnecessarily.
5) “Makom shemevashlin bo et hachametz” — where is the “place”?
“Makom” means the innermost side of the bor — because usually one heats (mesik) from outside, and the chametz is absorbed from inside.
6) Absorption is local:
Absorption works locally — only the specific spot where the chametz lay has absorption. Therefore, if one would turn over the vessel and use the other side, it would perhaps be different. The Rambam speaks of “makom shemevashlin bo” — the specific place needs to be made white-hot.
7) Why with earthenware bor can one make kosher, but with other earthenware vessels not?
With other earthenware vessels one simply says “put them away,” but with an earthenware bor one did find a way to make kosher (machziron lekhivshanan). The reason: a bor is a larger vessel, hard to get a new one, and because one always places it in an oven, there isn’t such a concern that one won’t do it properly. With smaller earthenware vessels one is concerned that the person will be afraid it will break, and won’t do it well enough. Rabbeinu Yonah says that new earthenware vessels from the kiln are permitted, because then one makes it “kachadashim” — but with normal earthenware vessels it’s not worth it, the effort is too great.
8) Structure of the Rambam’s laws:
The Rambam first wrote the exceptions: first cold, then the bor with charcho mibachutz. Both are earthenware vessels with special laws. The main stringency with earthenware is: if it was used bechamim (hot) with chametz, one cannot use it at all for matzah (hag’alah doesn’t help with earthenware). The bor is a special case where one can make it kosher through filling with coals.
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Halacha 3 — Kashering Vessels Used with Chametz in Boiling in a First Vessel
Words of the Rambam
“Metal vessels and stone vessels that were used with chametz in boiling, in a first vessel, such as pots and alfasim — one places into a large pot and fills water over them and boils them in it, and afterwards rinses them and they are permitted to use with matzah.”
Plain Meaning
Vessels of metal or stone that one cooked chametz in them in a first vessel (like pots and pans) — one places them in a large pot, fills with water, boils them, afterwards rinses them, and then one may use them on Pesach.
Novelties and Explanations
1) What is an “alfas”:
An alfas is a flatter pot (similar to a “pan”). The word “alfas” perhaps comes from the city of Fez in Morocco — “al-Fasi” means one from Fez (like the Tosafot Yom Tov’s name). [Digression: a discussion about the etymology of “alfas” and the city of Fez, and how pots from Fez are similar to “china dishes.”]
2) The Rambam’s practical advice — a large pot:
The Rambam gives a practical method: one takes a large pot, places the smaller vessels inside, fills with water, and boils. This is the normal way — one places the large pot on the fire, and thus the vessel is boiled with the same level of heat as it was used (kebolo kach polto).
3) “Bamatzah” — what does this mean:
“Bamatzah” means on Pesach — when one may use it, not which types of foods. This fits with how the Rambam calls the laws “chametz and matzah.”
4) First vessel — kebolo kach polto:
Because the vessel absorbed chametz through a first vessel (boiling), the hag’alah must also be in a first vessel. The Pri Chadash mentions that the principle “first vessel one makes hag’alah in a first vessel, second vessel in a second vessel” is not explicit in Pesachim, but it is built on laws in Yoreh De’ah.
5) “Mani’ach betochah” — not just placing:
The language “mani’ach betochah” shows that it must be a certain time inside the water. It is not enough a short immersion — one must leave the vessels inside “ad sheyiflot” (until it spits out) — so there should be a real possibility for the absorbed material to come out.
6) Rinsing in cold after hag’alah:
The Rambam writes “shotfan” — one must also wash in cold afterwards. This comes from the law in Zevachim: “merikah bechamim ushtifah betzonen.” The Shem HaGedolim mentions that it is not explicit in the Gemara in Pesachim, but the Geonim and Acharonim hold that one must indeed also have cold after hag’alah.
Why does one need cold water? After one placed chametz vessels in a boiling pot and it spat out — now there is something of chametz in the water. The cold water stops the process and washes off — it is a practical necessity, not just a stringency.
7) Wooden vessels — why not mentioned with first vessel:
The Rambam mentions metal vessels and stone vessels with first vessel, but not wooden vessels. Wooden vessels cannot be used as a first vessel (for cooking) because wood will burn on the fire. Wooden vessels (like plates of wood) are only second vessel — one eats in them, one pours hot food into them, but one doesn’t cook in them. Therefore wooden vessels are mentioned with second vessel (like bowls and cups) but not with first vessel.
Stone vessels with first vessel: Stone vessels can indeed withstand heat — like a “brick oven” is made of stones, and one uses stone plates for baking (like for “sourdough” challahs).
8) Hagahot Maimoniyot — second vessel:
The Hagahot Maimoniyot says that this law (of a lighter hag’alah) is only good when one knows for certain that the vessel was only a second vessel. The practical problem: Who can be certain? Perhaps one once used the spoon in a pot (first vessel)? The Rema brings from Rabbeinu Yonah and others that one doesn’t go according to majority of use — one must make sure that never was there a first vessel. The reason: even one time as a first vessel can make a strong absorption that the majority of use as a second vessel cannot undo.
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Knives
Words of the Rambam
Knives that were used with chametz — one must make hag’alah.
Novelties
1) Knives in Pesachim:
The Pri Chadash says that it is not in Pesachim at all, but it comes from “the law of peritah and shechizah.”
2) Nitzav (handle) and lahav (sharp part):
With a knife one only needs to kasher the part that touches the food — this means the sharp part. The nitzav (handle) is treated differently. The Gemara mentions that the nitzav one places “betinah” (clay/mud) and the kata (handle) one places in boiling. In practice the Gemara concludes that one can do both parts with rechitzah (washing) or first vessel.
3) Libun vs. hag’alah with knives:
Libun is more than first vessel — it is an actual fire itself, not just hot water. The Hagahot Maimoniyot brings from Pesachim the Rashbam about hag’alah and libun.
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Earthenware Vessels Used with Chametz in Hot
Words of the Rambam
“Earthenware vessels that were used with chametz in hot — whether first vessel (pots), whether second vessel (bowls), whether cups in which they drink beer (in hot) — one puts them away after Pesach, and rinses them and uses them.”
Plain Meaning
Earthenware vessels that were used with chametz in hot — all types, first vessel, second vessel, and cups for beer — one may not use on Pesach even in cold. One puts them away until after Pesach, washes them, and uses them further.
Novelties and Explanations
1) Comparison between the two laws — chametz in cold vs. chametz in hot:
The difference stands very clearly — if one used chametz in hot, the absorption is stronger, and one may not use anything on Pesach, even in cold.
2) Shulchan Aruch’s leniency with beer:
The Shulchan Aruch has a leniency regarding cups of beer, but the Rambam makes no distinction — he counts beer together with all other hot items. Whoever goes according to the Rambam, this is a stringency.
3) Dispute of Rav and Shmuel — earthenware vessel used with chametz:
– Rav said: A vessel whose way is to use on Pesach — yishbor (one must break it). The reason: a decree lest one learn from it — one is afraid that one will come to use it. Rav held that chametz absorbed in a vessel does not become nullified, therefore it is chametz on Pesach, bal yera’eh uval yimatzei.
– Shmuel said: One doesn’t need to break it, one can put it away.
4) The incident with Shmuel and the pot sellers:
Shmuel told the sellers of earthenware vessels that they should sell cheaper, and if not he will expound like Rabbi Shimon — that one may use earthenware vessels after Pesach (chametz she’avar alav haPesach is permitted). The Gemara asks: Was he right — can rabbis change a law because Jews want cheaper prices? The answer: Shmuel held that it is only a stringency / rabbinic decree, and in such a situation one can be lenient.
Novel idea about rabbis’ responsibility: From this sugya we learn that when rabbis hold that something is only a stringency (not from the essential law), they must waive the stringency so that Jews can buy cheaper. This is not really “changing” the law — but when they hold that it is essentially kosher, they should not forbid it arbitrarily.
5) Earthenware vessels as the “disposable” of old:
Earthenware vessels were the “old-fashioned version of disposable” — one broke them every Pesach and bought new ones. This fits with Rav’s opinion (yishbor). One finds archaeologically very many old earthenware pieces, because they were made cheaply and thrown away. It was a good business for the vessel sellers. The Maharsha says that this breaking of earthenware vessels was in remembrance of the destruction.
6) Novel idea of “making new”:
If one can make an earthenware vessel like new (so that everyone would think in the store that it’s new), it is like new. This is compared to teshuvah me’ahavah — “it becomes a new creation.”
7) Rabbeinu Manoach — cheres with samech or shin:
Rabbeinu Manoach writes “cheres” with a samech (חרס), and he didn’t see in the Rambam any shin. A rabbi, Rabbi Mordechai z”l, brings that the Rambam always writes what appears in the Torah.
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[Digression: Earthenware vessels today — porcelain, plastic]
Today’s “earthenware vessels” (porcelain) are not the same as old earthenware vessels. Old earthenware vessels really held a taste — one can feel it. Porcelain is a dispute whether it is earthenware. Also discussed is plastic — it depends which type: smooth containers are different from rough plastic.
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Great Discussion: What is “Absorption” — Physical Reality or Law?
1) Possibility A: Physical reality. Old vessels (earthenware vessels, stone vessels) were from weaker, more porous materials — “mechuspas” — which really soaked in. Even a stone, when one pours water on it, it soaks in through microscopic small openings. Today’s vessels are more solid and better quality, therefore it is hard for us to understand.
2) Possibility B: A law. Perhaps we don’t know exactly how absorption works, but Chazal established based on their understanding.
[Digression: How are stones/rocks made?] A discussion about the difference between even (natural stone, made through pressure and heat over many years) and levenah (man-made brick). Both are made through pressure and heat — the natural process just takes longer. Modern materials like quartz countertops are an imitation of the natural process (small stones pressed together with epoxy).
3) Laws of absorption are leniencies, not stringencies: An important novelty — the laws of hag’alah are essentially leniencies. When the vessel is still a bit dirty, the law says that hag’alah is enough — one doesn’t need to make the vessel “kechadta” (like new). This is a leniency: even if a bit remains, it is kosher after hag’alah.
4) “Kechadta” — like new: When a vessel looks new, one doesn’t need to ask how it became new. But normally it doesn’t look new after hag’alah — and the law says that this is fine.
5) Practical examples of dirt: In yeshiva the plates were always a bit dirty. A grill gets dirty, but the dirt becomes “farsraft” (burned) — this is libun. Old pots were very valued — it says about a pot that one cooks soup for a thousand years, “chozer vene’or”, always adding.
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Sugya in Avodah Zarah — Kashering Large Vessels
Plain Meaning
The Gemara in Avodah Zarah brings a method: “makif lah sefel shel tahor al sefatah mibachutz, veshomet yado mitoch sefel shel tahor, umemale mayim ad sheyagi’u hamayim al sefatah, umartei’ach hamayim betochah, vedayo” — one places a clean vessel around the rim from outside, one pours water until it reaches the rim, one boils the water inside, and this is enough.
Novelties
– Boiling first vessel is ideally kosher for hag’alah.
– Rabbi Akiva’s wisdom is mentioned — “man chacham leme’evad kol milta” — a wise person can do everything.
– The part around “elef” (the rim) is perhaps only when it boils over the pot — a technical distinction in hag’alah.
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Erev Pesach — Destroying Chametz and Breaking Earthenware Vessels
The picture of erev Pesach in the great court — everyone came to the middle of the city to the place where one burns chametz, and there was a huge fire where one broke earthenware vessels. Earthenware vessels can be remade — it is not a disgrace of merchandise.
📝 Full Transcript
Hag’alas Keilim for Pesach — Earthenware Vessels and Metal Vessels
Overview: Where We Are Holding in Hilchos Chametz U’Matzah
Speaker 1: We’re going to learn halachos in honor of Pesach, Hilchos Chametz U’Matzah. I see I prepared here, I didn’t show it, I believe we learned last year until approximately perek yud (chapter 10), and we’re holding in the middle of perek yud. We’re going to be from perek yud, from daf kuf yud (page 110), from daf kuf yud.
So, let’s go. We’re going to learn about chametz, the halachos of tashbisu se’or. Kuf pei, yud alef (chapter 10, halacha 11). I see that I made it until there, so at least I need to start from here it becomes more nogei’a l’ma’aseh (practically relevant) also. L’ma’aseh one goes and takes much more wild topics.
Okay, good. Kuf pei, yud alef. What does this relate to? This is a new piece. This hasn’t connected with the previous ones.
So, let’s see in which category of mitzvah this is. The Rambam has here Hilchos Chametz U’Matzah. What? No, not exactly. Let’s see. There are included in them eight mitzvos: to destroy se’or, and that chametz should not be seen at all, yes?
So, we haven’t spoken about this. So, the beginning of the siman was, he said which types of things are chametz, which types of grain. How does it become chametz? In what manner? If it’s cooked, if it’s roasted beforehand it doesn’t become chametz, such types of discussions.
And afterwards he spoke about how one makes matzos, how one ensures that the matzos… there was a matter of “u’shemartem es ha’matzos,” that one has a mitzvah to guard that it shouldn’t become chametz. There are chumros in the halacha how one must guard the grain, the shemirah from the time of harvesting, and so on, what does become chametz and what doesn’t. And afterwards a bit the halachos when one bakes matzos, what one needs to pay more attention to that it shouldn’t be chametz, warm water becomes chametz faster, such things, halachos. And afterwards there were halachos of when one gives food to animals, how to ensure that it doesn’t become chametz. Because one may not… what may not remain with chametz? Is it a matter of being a Jew? Yes, yes. There are such chumros and precautions in not creating chametz on Pesach.
Um, so, and here we’re holding by… we can go by kuf. We can start from matzah ashirah perhaps? No, kuf alef. Kuf alef, very good. Okay. Kuf is a halacha of matzah ashirah, that one may indeed, because we discussed here that when it has mei peiros… I don’t know any continuation of an answer, it says what is a halacha of mei peiros, but that Pesach itself should be lechem oni. Very good.
The Question: Why Do Halachos of Keilim Appear in This Chapter?
Speaker 1: Now a halacha is going to begin about which keilim one may use on Pesach if they were used for chametz. Wait, the essential din of hechsher, of hag’alas keilim, is in another place in the Rambam? There is a din that the Gemara learns from there in kelei Midian, that when one buys keilim from a non-Jew, and so on, kelei nochrim, how one is machshir. You’re asking if the Rambam has in another place halachos of hag’alah? Hilchos Keilim? Yes. Do we need to go prepared to see? I would be interested to see, to compare the two places how he covered which Friday.
Let’s just understand, what we’re now going to learn is which types of keilim one may use on Pesach. Does this have to do with the fact that one may not eat chametz on Pesach? Yes, it has very much to do with the chapters of “u’shemartem,” that there should be extreme shemirah. Is this a new… let’s see if the mefarshim explain why it’s here in the middle. It needs to have a bit of an explanation why it’s here. Yes, yes, yes.
Um, one may not make any… wait, he says that the perek still has to do with… I mean he says here in the introduction to the perek that this is a continuation of Hilchos Chametz U’Matzah, because it begins with the fact that chametz is only those things from which one can make matzah, and matzah one can only make from things that can become chametz. And from this he goes into exactly how to make the matzah so it shouldn’t become chametz. But the second part of halacha hei is very interesting things, these are halachos of kelei chametz.
What one eats makes the shemirah more than the essence of “lo yeira’eh lecha chametz.”
Speaker 2: No, this is part of…
Speaker 1: And in Hilchos Ma’achalos Asuros, at the end of Hilchos Ma’achalos Asuros, the Rambam speaks about the halachos of hag’alas keilim, gi’ulei kelei Midian, “kol asher yavo ba’eish,” and there the Rambam explains the matters of k’vol’o kach polto, and tevilas keilim he speaks there.
I mean these are the matters of k’vol’o kach polto.
Speaker 2: Hag’alah, yes, hag’alah and tevilas keilim he speaks there.
Speaker 1: Good, I don’t want to go into the sugya now.
Speaker 2: But, yes, perek yud zayin (chapter 17), Hilchos Ma’achalos Asuros.
Speaker 1: So, so here, now I think it comes a bit after what one learns from ta’arovos, as if when there is in the pot it’s clear that a question of ta’arovos begins, that it gets mixed in. No, but just so that one buys keilim from a non-Jew, there’s always the concern that there are ta’arovos of a forbidden thing. So on this there are the pesukim of “v’zeh ha’davar asher ta’asu lahem,” and there’s a hint “lo kol asher yavo ba’eish.” Okay, not important.
And here let’s see, if we’re going to see a bit about bli’os, this is the foundation of the halacha, this is essentially not by chametz there are things that are different from all ma’achalos asuros, this is what he speaks about here. Let’s see, let’s go in a bit, let’s see what we’re talking about.
Halacha Chof Alef: Earthenware Vessels Used with Chametz Cold
Speaker 1: Okay, the Rambam says: “Kol kli cheres she’nishtamesh bo be’chamin”, yes, “kol kli cheres she’nishtamesh bo be’chamin”, that one used in the earthenware vessel chametz, but it was only cold, and nothing was absorbed from it, it’s permitted to use them for matzah cold. Except, what’s the exception? Except for a vessel in which one places se’or, or vessels in which one places charoses, for they are sharp, and draw chametz strongly.
Understanding “Chamitzan Kashah”
The language “chamitzan kashah,” seemingly means to say that they are sharp things, therefore the chametz absorbs better. “Chamitzan kashah” means it’s a harder case of chametz, it’s a more severe situation of chametz. Because I don’t think he means “chamitzan kashah” that it absorbed very strongly, therefore it will be better absorbed. Rather it’s a sour thing, therefore it catches in stronger, therefore chamitzan kashah, it makes very chametz-like, it makes very severely chametz-like, it’s a severe chametz-maker, it’s a severe chametz maker.
But seemingly this is the word, yes, because we know from other places that a sharp thing or a thing that absorbs more strongly. What is the side of the halacha of the vessel? Okay, let’s see. Okay, I don’t know, okay. I don’t know, I don’t know.
Question: Why Only Cold?
Speaker 1: Okay, the Gemara taught us that one may not eat chametz on Pesach. Now the Gemara teaches us a new thing, one may not eat even chametz. Keilim that one used with chametz one also may not use with things on Pesach. And this is about ta’arovos chametz, this is about what? It doesn’t matter why, right? Because it doesn’t. Also we saw that one may use it for matzah cold, on Pesach cold. But why only cold? If one says that the vessel that one used cold chametz there was no bli’ah, should one now indeed be able to put on Pesach vessels hot things, that which one can only put hot, and even more so. And seemingly one should be able to put cold matzos, plain matzos one should be able to put even if one used it for hot chametz, because how will the dry hard matzah be absorbed from a clean plate? Okay. This needs to be understood. It appears that we’ve encountered a great chumra here. Okay.
Discussion: Kelei Se’or and Charoses — Why Not at All?
Speaker 1: Um… what is if chamitzo kashah is what? I don’t know what that has to do with it. What is the similarity?
Okay, it’s chamitzo kashah, therefore what should one do? It should be… ah, “therefore it’s proper not to place a bit of chametz that’s placed there lest it become chametz, and it’s proper to be stringent like the beis ha’or.” Is this the same as the vessel in which one places the or? Yes. The same halacha as the beis ha’or that we just said. Therefore, one uses it on Pesach. This is the vessel that is chamitzo kashah, and this is not at all for Pesach.
The things that one doesn’t do, one doesn’t do at all for Pesach. We don’t know why. Does this have to do with bli’os or anything? We don’t know why. Perhaps it’s a very chametz-like thing, it’s a symbol of chametz, it’s the place where one makes the chametz, the avi avos of chametz. I don’t know! We don’t know why! Why shouldn’t one say bli’os? Why shouldn’t one say that a cold matzah, if the vessel was dried, it can smell until tomorrow of sour, but if it was washed, it became good. Right? Okay, one can’t fix it. It’s exactly like a mother sees a vessel has a baked pot, I don’t know, a crazy thing. One needs to understand why.
A dry matzah, we’re certainly not talking about a manner when everyone sees that… when crumbs and chametz are lying no one needs to say that he’ll put any matzah on that. I want to tell you something a new chumra, that a whole if you don’t see that there should be exactly a concern, there needs to be yes still a concern.
The Words of the Rambam and the Gemara
Do you want to learn? So, for Hagahos Maimoniyos rules on this then when the beis, it says Rava bar Abba said in the name of Rav Ashi and Shmuel, all vessels that are used with chametz cold, one uses them for matzah, except for beis ha’se’or, since its fermentation is strong. Rav Ashi said, and beis charoses is like beis ha’se’or, since because of the salt which is sharp it’s like beis ha’se’or.
That means it’s not a beis ha’se’or. You’re looking in Maggid Mishneh? And the obvious brings more at the end of the Gemara. Okay, well well.
Explanation of Maggid Mishneh — What is Beis Ha’Se’or
Beis ha’se’or, the Maggid Mishneh brings, the rule is a rebbe and shalshom, when we’re not a beis ha’se’or. It’s only a… he holds it’s similar to beis ha’se’or. It’s only a… it has the kneading, one puts the dough, but in the end one puts it into the se’or. It lies there a long time, until it grows, until it grows, whatever.
Did he say, and the vessel in which one kneads the dough also lies in the se’or long? So he says. So he says. But the regular for one who isn’t expert in them, this one doesn’t keep regularly, perhaps not a long time regularly, it also lies in the se’or the whole time, every time one makes another challah. One makes, he puts more into the zer! And… every vessel then that made challah, also has a small drop of zer! And one doesn’t see it, then we’re talking here! A relevant language!
The Question — Why Is It Forbidden
One can needs to understand, but why is it forbidden? Is it because the bli’os are stronger! And this will give a bit more to understand!
Let’s say the fact, what does the Gemara say! The two halachos that the Rambam brings, right? Kli cheres that wasn’t used except with beis ha’or, and beis charoses, which should give much more to understand, one of the third halacha is the end of the first halacha is from Shmuel, and the Rambam here has three halachos.
Three Halachos from Three Amora’im
Halacha number 1 beis ha’or, this is the halacha of Shmuel, and halacha number 2 beis charoses, this is the halacha of Rav Ashi, and halacha number 3 the Rivash’s language of vinegar, this is the halacha of Rava. They’re all built on the same idea, there’s to lead with this.
And also this has the first halacha only been kol kli cheres she’nishtamesh bahen chametz. He already means any other vessel. A rebbe in the vessel isn’t any distinction of which material. It’s even from something that one can generally make kosher. One doesn’t use on Pesach. On something that one cannot make kosher.
Two Versions in the Gemara
The Maggid Mishneh says that there are two versions in the Gemara. In our Gemara it says keilim she’nishtamesh bahen chametz be’tzonen, mishtamshin bahen matzah, not cold, just used them for matzah he said as it said. Ah, this seemingly one would have meant matzah even hot, because the chametz was never hot. Because there was no chametz in the vessel, there wasn’t if one thinks that only when it’s hot is it absorbed or something exactly what that means. So hot is also a problem, but the Rambam and the Rif had the version mishtamshin be’matzah be’tzonen. Only cold.
Explanation of Maggid Mishneh — Why One Must Wash in Hot Water
The Maggid Mishneh says the explanation is seemingly, he wants to understand here why, the Maggid Mishneh says that even when one used it only cold, one must wash it in hot water. The Maggid Mishneh says so, one needs to understand why. Even when one used it only cold, one must wash it in hot water. A hag’alah, just washing in hot water in an earthenware vessel one can understand, because that’s how it stood in the Gemara or something.
When an earthenware vessel the Rambam holds that it’s a great chumra. If one can’t fix it. Right? Yes. Another vessel one may use, certainly. Even in hot water one may use it, one just needs to make it kosher. But kli cheres, if it was used with chametz in hot water, one doesn’t use it for matzah even cold.
Two Chumros in Kli Cheres
From this halacha one can learn two things, two chumros. One, that if there was chametz cold, one shouldn’t use it for matzah cold. I mean, sorry, if there was chametz cold, one shouldn’t use it for matzah warm, and if there was chametz warm, one shouldn’t use it for matzah even cold.
What needs to be both chametz cold and also matzah cold? He says, specifically in kli cheres. If it weren’t kli cheres, one would have had to do it in hot water. A whole long time there were cold foods. No, one didn’t have to do there. Because the Rambam says explicitly, even when it’s not kli cheres, even when it’s in hot water one can make kosher and one may use it in hot water. Because kli cheres has no remedy, they forbade it even when one didn’t use it in hot water, that’s the word. Aha.
Explanation of the Chumra — Because Kli Cheres Has No Remedy
And the Rambam says so, it’s a chumra for you to stand far from kli cheres on Pesach, this is being stringent with kli cheres that was used for chametz, because if it’s with hot water, then it has no remedy, you shouldn’t use any kli cheres that was used even cold.
Okay, it’s not a bad reasoning of the Maggid Mishneh. It’s a chumra in kli cheres, because kli cheres has no remedy through hot water, one doesn’t use it on Pesach even cold. One can hear, perhaps it once became hot, you don’t remember. One can hear, it’s not such an extreme chumra. What has no remedy through hag’alah or hechsher, one completely forbade it that it’s not a vessel that one uses on Pesach. One can hear why even when it’s used cold. I know, a gezeirah, that sometimes it became hot etc., and there’s no remedy through making it kosher. Through hag’alah one completely forbade it from using on Pesach. A chumra. A chumra in kli cheres.
Discussion — The Other Version
But one needs the next halacha from over there. According to this he brings a Gemara that it can be that in general the Rama doesn’t mean this. The others who argue that no, the explanation is, the others all have the version that it doesn’t say so, therefore regarding this one relied on chametz in hot water. But even according to the version it wouldn’t be so simple. And even according to the version, what they say that it doesn’t mean matzah cold, even matzah in hot water, it doesn’t mean that, it only means chametz in hot water. That then is even matzah cold, this is indeed matzah, the other chumra is indeed the second opinion. Right, chametz in hot water one may not use in any manner, that’s the word.
And although it’s also not any absorbed thing that is cold, the absorbed one could have, but since the vessel has no remedy, one forbade the vessel. This is the other explanation. This is the other interpretation. Okay, anyway, this is the explanation.
The Question — What Is the Great Chumra
It’s a bit unclear what the explanation of the great chumra is here. He brings in the Be’er, that chametz is something terribly absorbed that is absorbed. Even kli cheres they decreed on it other vessels, which is not so with other forbidden foods. Chametz in hot water they have hechsher. One needs to know why isn’t kli cheres? Do you understand the question?
The question is if one makes both. You can say that it needs to be that one may not both cold, chametz cold and matzah cold, or only chametz cold is always forbidden but matzah cold… one needs to know what is the agenda with kli cheres, why did one forbid so strongly kli cheres.
Explanation of the Chumra — A Decree Because Kli Cheres Has No Remedy
Continuation of Discussion on Chametz Vessels
It’s interesting, when he says that it was in a keres (earthenware vessel), a kli cheres is a ye’ush (despair) that you can’t make it kosher, the Chachamim said that one should not use any earthenware vessel that was used with chametz, one should not use it with Pesach. He says according to the stringent halacha, according to the stringent Magihei Mishnayos, where it says in the Mishnah “matzah b’chamin” (matzah in hot water), right? Again, cold, yes, right, right, right.
There is certainly a case that is permitted. Both cold is certainly permitted. There is certainly a case that is permitted. Or earthenware vessels because it’s difficult, it’s too much, they added a level of stringency. A level of stringency is even if it wasn’t used for chametz, if it’s not used for hot on matzah. Specifically.
The Position of Rabbeinu Menuach
Ah, here we have Rabbeinu Menuach, from which we can learn what this means. Yonah matzah boer menuach v’noach u’lecher meshater. Yes. How do I see? That Yonah already already benu menuach? Yes, here we have the thing. Ah, ah, ah. Yes. A lot, Imrei Shach. Imrei Shach. He says a lot. Yes, we’ll see. Well, I’m a bit. Yes, but he is only. Vessels first should we see old.
He speaks about something else regarding the matzah becoming forbidden. Because he says here a… because they have a proof from a language from the lech techilah (go first). Yes, can one say to you that what what what does it mean that it’s not a problem? Yes. But it’s not with the word. Lo nesst raim matzah. But it doesn’t want to be tamish ben chama. Lo nesst raim matzah. It should be a chiddush (novelty), no. No.
But if one learns that it’s some kind of decree, Rabbeinu Menuach understood that it’s something yes, valu du iz shtamsh ben chama. No. It’s not that actually it’s not cost. Because it can’t do anything to you. No. Because the matzos, perhaps when the war should turn the matzah into chametz, and perhaps it’s still further both, perhaps not. This we can already hear, but… But this is the foundation of the position of the Rav. But already specifically ulach. No, sorry, I understand you the whole time. Enter again. This we can already hear. Okay.
And one makes a Rabbeinu Menuach. A distinction that although the Rabbis speak about what he said about an animal.
Beis HaSe’or and Charoses – Continuation of Discussion
Speaker 1:
Can one hear that the beis hase’or (leavening house) is always stronger than a place where one simply puts in a piece of bread, where there is no connection, the bread doesn’t soak in. I say that the beis hase’or is yes simple, one can hear, but regarding difficulties, I didn’t say anything about the matter, I said nothing, I don’t understand any bread.
Okay, let’s go further. Two, charoses. But Rabbeinu Yonah says like the things placed in the beis hase’or, ah, the length of the beis hase’or, that it lies there many times with the dough, with the se’or, is this a good reason for chametz vessels, I don’t know.
The language of the Gemara is “ho’il v’ish bah kiuha”, kiuha is some sharpness, bole’as, b’tzonen nami chamtzan. This is the language, I don’t know what the language is, Rabbeinu Yonah brings, a sharp thing, even if it’s cold, is considered like a hot thing.
What is Charoses?
Okay, he says what is charoses, he means only charoses that has vinegar, because it’s sharp. The charoses doesn’t mean the charoses of Pesach, apparently because it’s Pesach’dik, but rather a year-round charoses. Apparently yes. Ah, right. This is the whole thing of charoses all year. I mean that charoses is a special thing for Pesach. Meanwhile charoses is something. Why should there be a chametz’dik charoses? If charoses is something that is very sharp, is chametz itself chametz? This is the vinegar.
No, he says when one puts in something bread with vinegar, that the vinegar is the sharp thing that soaks in, not the bread. It drags along bread, well, but… But charoses, what is charoses? Charoses, let’s say one makes it with… First there are in it a few bread crumbs, croutons, and it doesn’t make the absorption doesn’t become any absorption of chametz apparently, because the absorption is only from the sharpness of the vinegar. He says yes, that the bread catches a ride. So he says. The vinegar is “kol davar she’yesh bo kiuha”, the revelation is to vinegar, and when one dips it there into dough all year, the flour that the chametz makes is a kiuha. Something, it’s some kind of sharp dip azans. A chametz’dik dip, that’s the word. A sharp chametz’dik dip. Right?
The Law of Erev Pesach Specifically
Now, ah, specifically the erev Pesach specifically is a language of Rava, agan chamar agna d’Mechuza, haveh tedira l’mila shvei chamira, u’mashra bah chamira, that it lies there to soak there, this is k’veis ha’otzer shel machmitzei kutach. Because it lies there a lot with the vinegar. With the se’or?
Question on the Rambam’s Position
I don’t understand how this works. One finds a statement of Shmuel who simply says a leniency, and from this one builds that there is a decree from the Chachamim. Why should they make a decree? This is anyway, I don’t understand how this works. Do you understand what I’m asking you? The position of the Rambam is, it doesn’t make sense. I need to stand thus, I need to stand great in heat, I need to stand specifically in earthenware vessels, because anyway he says this happens. It simply happens. Why should they go say that it’s… It’s a bit funny, right? It’s a bit funny.
Halacha 21 – Cold in Earthenware Vessels
Okay, let’s go further, next halacha. Okay, already. We know at least that cold is certainly permitted according to all opinions even an earthenware vessel that one cannot make hagalah. If it was only cold chametz, one may use it with cold matzah. Right?
Practical Leniency – Challah Cover
For example, I want to bring out here the leniency, I love leniencies. For example the cover that you put in your bread all year, according to all opinions you can put in your matzah for Pesach. Better said, it’s foolishness that a person should have an extra challah cover and a matzah bag. You can take the challah cover. If you want specifically to spread the custom, you can say so.
Discussion: Does One Need to Clean the Crumbs?
Further, you know the crumbs, does one need to clean it? One needs to clean it. One needs to clean it just like everything in the house one needs to clean. It doesn’t say that you need to turn it over. It doesn’t say that you need to turn it over. It says that you need to check for crumbs. A challah cover is a place where there are many crumbs. There is a halacha, there is a halacha about a women’s sieve, they check specific sieves, because there are many crumbs there. There is a Gemara in Pesachim, it seems to me, that checking for chametz is with absorption, not with the eye. Right? One needs to do hagalah. But I don’t want from the challah cover, I want to ask a kingdom mara d’ara.
Speaker 2:
Yes, but here it appears that one may have. What do you say, that one needs to shake it out?
Speaker 1:
Okay, I need to shake it out. I don’t know. Could be. It doesn’t say here.
Speaker 2:
No, I mean, earthenware vessels don’t have this thing. Are there crumbs?
Speaker 1:
Okay, so l’chatchilah there are no crumbs. It’s not something that crumbs stick to. It’s a bit of stringency. Again, I want specifically to be stringent, and I want to be stringent, one should give a look at the challah cover for a minute or two, cover with matzos, and go further.
Speaker 2:
Why are you doing? You’re not being stringent in every thing that is permitted. We have a very long list if one may do every thing that is permitted.
Speaker 1:
No, I said that if there comes some time of need, I know, you have tremendous faith, and you need to say it for the trusting public, and then one comes up with a whole collection of leniencies. But leniencies that don’t fall out, you know, go further.
The Distinction Between Vessels One Prepares In and Vessels One Places In After Baking
In other words, let’s stand the words to understand what’s written here. Usually, if there are any vessels that one bakes the chametz in, they are too… The vessels that one places in after the baked chametz, it’s already cold, that is permitted. The only ones that one may not, are the vessels that one prepares in, there where one puts in the flour, and there where one leaves the mixer, that one should not use.
It can also be, nowadays there is probably, there where one… According to what’s written here.
Halacha 22 – Biv Shel Cheres
Already, I don’t know. “Biv shel cheres”. Biv shel cheres, I don’t know what he says. Something in earthenware, on which one makes… Already, chalos chametz kol hashanah. Someone who uses this for Pesach. What is a biv? Is this an oven piece? A tray that one puts into the oven? It appears, Rabbeinu Menuach, “kli she’osin bo ofin atikim”, one takes a piece that fell from the roof. To what? Refim is the roof? Shingles, whatever, the parts of the roof. In Hebrew, I mean that refim is roof.
In short, one finds some large piece of metal that fell down, one can easily put into the oven to what? Already, afilu chalos chametz kol hashanah, and even in practice, I know, because it has absorptions from… from now. Yes, already, from a lav, yes. But…
Discussion: What is a Biv?
Speaker 2:
A biv, you said the thing that one cooks in, some kind of oven piece, I thought it’s different from a normal oven in our house. What? What do you mean?
Speaker 1:
Yes. The nria… kli res… a biv is an oven piece. A biv appears something that one puts in. You translate like?
The Law of Hagalah for Biv
Halacha, hai b’chaya, says the Gemara, hai b’chaya, saikan b’chutz, saikan b’chutz, forbidden. When one doesn’t live there the… ah, v’ima, let’s explain, v’ima mila gachalim v’hisek makom she’eino mevashel chametz, permitted to cook in it in practice. It’s not exactly what the reality of what we’re speaking about here. It’s a whole long Gemara of… such a kli re… the Gemara said that there is a distinction of tanur shel… a shakri shel chatvel distinction. Kasakim bifnim, kasakim bachutz. Kasakim bifnim is… white? Kasakim bachutz is occupied. Yes.
Speaker 2:
A minute, again. What should we see with the ber… because we can enough kosher it.
Speaker 1:
Yes. Milui gachalim. Where is sakim makom shlomo vashel through chametz?
Speaker 2:
Yes. We is green. Don’t know take mitl chura then. We need to make it something special side.
Speaker 1:
Okay. With coals. Milui gachalim means…
Bor Shel Cheres – Continuation of Discussion
The Gemara and Rambam: Sealed Oven and Groove
Speaker 1: Sealed oven, if it has a groove and its groove is from inside and its groove is from outside. Its groove from inside is permitted, and its groove from outside is forbidden. Its groove, right? Its groove, yes, I guess.
A minute, a minute, before that. What should we see with the bor? Because one can enough kosher it, yes? Milui gachalim v’yetzikah mayim rotchin al makom shenatan bo hachametz. Yes, not only with libun (heating), but one needs to make it something special. Okay, with coals. Milui gachalim means what? The oven? Yes. And he put in the makom shenatan bo hachametz.
What he says is, there is its groove from outside or its groove from inside. A normal oven, yes, where one puts in the fire, yes, what an oven should go for example, that one has an oven, not like the fancy ovens of the house, the ovens of the bread, it’s literally everything is there. A normal oven, where the oven one puts in, on the walls one puts in the bread. One needs to cook it off. Once one makes hagalah, whatever it’s called, and one may use it.
What is not so the thing, one doesn’t make the way that one bakes in this is not like a pot, not its groove from inside. Not an oven, therefore this time our normal oven is cooked out. It’s its groove from inside of the bor. So he has it, such a top style thing. Right, the top that you put into the oven, so regarding the challah it’s like an external oven. You don’t need to put in the challah in this. I mean that he explains here that it’s some piece of an oven. It’s actually from a rough piece of wood or a rough piece of metal. A rough piece of metal on the stone, yes. This means such a tray, like a metal tray that he puts into the oven, so the challah stays on the metal, it shouldn’t touch. Okay, okay, yes, okay.
Speaker 2: Ah, he doesn’t say that it’s earthenware, he says that it’s a metal vessel.
Speaker 1: Metal he didn’t say. No, metal comes extra halacha. Okay, we’ll finish metal. One needs makom shenatan bo hachametz, and how is it a pot? No, it’s a pot she’charko mibachutz. Charko mibachutz means simply that it becomes less baked the bottom side. But the fact is that one needs to fill it from inside. Standing one needs to fill it from inside with the coals, one needs to see what is enough.
The Rambam’s Language Change: “Ofin” and “Mevashel”
Speaker 1: But another thing, simply weird, the Rambam changes the language from “ofin” (baking) to “mevashel” (cooking). “Makom she’ofin bo lo ya’afeh bo, makom shemevashlin bo muter levashel bo”. What is simply funny, simply mad this language. He starts with “ofin” and “ofin”, and he goes to “mevashel” and “mevashel”.
I don’t know what this language is, I hold it’s a halacha. In any case, “bor shel cheres shehayah manihin bo chamin kol hashanah, ein ofin bo es hamatzah b’Pesach. But one fills it with coals, and since it was whitened every place that one cooks the chametz in, there is no chametz in it”. The language is simply mad.
Yes, he says the same halacha, and it also makes sense. “Ofin” – we’re speaking about a type of oven. It’s something between an oven and a pot, about this he speaks that the tray is how it goes into the oven or into a tefach. “Ofin bo chametz, ein ofin bo”. And then he goes to “makom shemevashlin bo chametz, muter levashel bo”. I don’t know why he changed the language.
Speaker 2: Ah, in the versions it’s actually, he crosses out the two “levashel’s”. “Ofin” and “la’afos”.
Speaker 1: The word is only… ah, and the Gemara actually says “likdeirah l’mashal”. One doesn’t do this in it, because for a pot one is concerned that it will break. One needs to be… One won’t fill it with stones in it. And with coals, all the more so the thing, the next piece will fall from the roof, and that one is too less important to what. The hibub is less important. But this is the point, a thing that one bakes in, you ask a question why is it worse.
Question: Why Isn’t the Regular Heat Enough?
Speaker 1: I understand what the honors are going to fall the work. On which things didn’t happen from the permission of erd. Already a thousand it doesn’t get cleaned in there in there in hilt chasmachalos hasoros. We meanwhile haven’t yet seen in hilt chaim tzomeach. So I want to understand something. Let’s say the biuv is a tray, so every time one bakes it’s possible that the chametz gets absorbed in, it bakes in, it’s a mevli’ah. So you can’t do the thing with the matzah, because when he puts the matzah on it the matzah will connect to a place where there are through bli’os and chametz. So the biuv. Granted, isn’t it enough that the stem says that both times it gets burned out, and not enough, both times it gets burned out, there remains in it some moisture or some absorption, he says he puts the matzah on it that it’s then itself there on fire, but then is the time when one is the ah, here one added a new level, that besides there where its inside.
I want to understand… ah, he was standing, that why isn’t the regular kashering l’chafos? One needs to understand, okay. I have is a stringency here. Okay, this is old which kliya now, okay.
Answer: Heat from Outside Doesn’t Clean from Inside
Speaker 1: One can hear a simple answer, that ovens have a temperature always. So, one can always come say that it’s hotter than it was, when the bli’ah was. But I want to say something, but listen, so, when one should say only, that one needs to put it into the same oven, at the same place, at the same fire, at the same testimony, and they should make it a hagalah, it needs to still stand, perhaps it’s not as hot as other times. But if he puts it into the oven, is it clearly a higher level of heat that makes a good hagalah?
I just want I just want to understand that it should make sense, it should make clear that it’s common sense.
Speaker 2: Which principle? The principle of k’shem shebole’o kach polto (as it absorbs so it releases)? Why isn’t it enough that one puts in this piece of meat at the same level of heat? Not only a higher level of heat, but the same level of heat.
Speaker 1: Why? Because for the same reasons why there was absorption before. Why was there absorption? Because when something becomes very hot, it absorbs. Something is there, it’s not human, it’s science, it’s physics. Something is there absorption, especially if you say that the vessels once weren’t so hard and so sharpened.
Continuation: The Process of Hag’alah — “Placing Them Inside Until They Expel”
Speaker 2: I’m just telling you a fact, that when it cooks from the outside, it doesn’t clean out from the inside. That’s what I’m saying. Making something hot doesn’t clean it out.
Speaker 1: We’re not talking here about actual cleaning, we’re talking about whether something is sticky the taste.
Speaker 2: I’ve never heard that you clean out something by making it hot. I’ve never seen such a thing in the world.
Speaker 1: No, it’s not cleaning, it’s burning out. If there’s any dirt or anything inside…
Speaker 2: Ah, you’re saying it doesn’t get burned out.
Speaker 1: I’m telling you, when you put it in boiling water, it literally burns out, not just that it gets hot. If something stuck there remained, there’s nothing left. That’s the way one does hag’alah on something used for matzah.
Review: The Main Point
Speaker 1: In short, we shouldn’t have learned, we shouldn’t see certain things that we should in our heads, we need to look at how it’s written there, clarify it, where it comes from, what is the source of it. Until now, seichel hayashar makes sense, in my head it goes in very well what’s written there.
Innovation: Bli’ah is Local
Speaker 1: But we saw here apparently something else, that the bli’ah doesn’t work on… One says on the entire meat there are bli’os, but one can say that it’s local on that piece of meat. This means that if he had used the other side from what he used for chametz for matzah, he turns around the table and he talks into it, because he says “makom sherub tashmeesho b’chametz, mutar l’vashel alav matzah”. “Mutar l’vashel alav” means alav on that place?
Speaker 2: Makom means he’s saying inside, because usually one heats the outside.
Speaker 1: Ah, that means “makom sherub tashmeesho b’chametz” – the inside of the oven where one cooks the chametz. The inside of the pot. Ah, interesting. Ah, the oven, yes. Ah, interesting. Because I thought makom means on the pot.
Speaker 2: Yes, you have a large pot, you always used to put the chametz there. I remember that if you want to put there on that piece, on that spot on the pot, that it’s not a pot…
Speaker 1: No, no, but here he’s talking about makom sherub tashmeesho. I mean that this isn’t the pot.
Speaker 2: That’s a different question. I’m with you. I don’t know if the other people will understand that it goes over the pot and the thing. One needs to discuss it.
Summary: The Structure of the Rambam’s Laws
Review of the Laws Until Now
Speaker 1: Okay, now, okay, until now we learned about kli cheres cold. Now we’re going to learn about chamin. First we’re going to talk about… no, until now we learned, one can say, two matters of cheres. Both were kli cheres, yes?
Speaker 2: Ah, still cold.
Speaker 1: Yes, but it’s like weird, because the order…
Kli cheres have stringencies. What were the stringencies? That if it was used with chamin, one cannot use it at all for matzah.
Speaker 2: It didn’t actually say that. We’re just imagining that it said that. It isn’t really saying that.
Speaker 1: If yes, I want to see the stringencies. And the same thing was a stringency that one doesn’t use at all any vessels that have hard chametz. The shiur before, there are three types of vessels that have hard chametz. I mean that this was the main point.
And also the second stringent law about cheres was that it needs a stringency if one makes it hot from the inside. And everyone will see what’s written in the Gemara, not cheres, but foods and other vessels, that with other vessels one can kasher them more easily.
The Rambam’s Order: Exceptions First
Speaker 1: Really what’s going on is that first the Rambam wrote the laws of the two exceptions. The first is cold, and the first stringency he means. I don’t believe that he means to make the stringency. Once the Rambam would have had to write that there’s a stringency that the cold… I know, I’m not happy with the whole piece of Torah one was satisfied with their things, that one is medayek in the chiddush. I’m not sure. I don’t know, the Rambam when he wants to say something a stringency he says it clearly, he can’t… Who can mean that he says it simply clearly? He says mutar just like that.
Speaker 2: Well well, he says it clearly, I can make you the two diyukim that I made you afterwards later, that only chamin one may not.
Halachah 3 – Hag’alas Keilim That Were Used With Chametz in Boiling Water (Kli Rishon)
The Rambam’s Words and Explanation of the Simple Meaning
Speaker 1: The first woman he means, I don’t believe that he means to make the stringency. I don’t know, or the Rambam had to write that there’s a stringency that the cold… I don’t know. I’m not an expert in the… The whole piece of Torah one didn’t encounter all these things, that one is medayek in the chiddush. I’m not sure. I’ll look in my Rambam. The Rambam, when he wants to say something a stringency, he says it clearly. He says it explicitly clearly, he says with the plain language of cold.
But afterwards he says clearly, I can still make the two diyukim that you made. Afterwards he says later that only chamin one may not. I don’t know, I’m not an expert in the…
Let’s learn halachah 3, let’s see. I want to try to look at the halachah. The four halachos he says the whole Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel and the Rambam. I don’t know, it’s very clear.
Afterwards he says like this, yes. “Kli matacos u’kli avanim shenishamshu bahen chametz b’roshin, b’kli rishon, k’gon kedeiros v’alfasin” – kedeiros means a pot, alfasin is also a thing for cooking. Yes, a flatter pot, ma’aseh alfas. A pan, is that called? A pan is called alfas, yes? I’ll ask the Rav.
Speaker 2: Yes, it’s called alfas.
Digression: What is an “Alfas”
Speaker 1: Someone once told me, he made a chazakah that the Ashkenazim think that alfas is a pot. Yes, because the others call it alfas because the man ate a pot. No, he made a joke with the language. He made a joke, he said that the Rambam didn’t know such a type of thing.
It’s invalid, also in invalid he made a joke. It’s called alfas.
There’s a language in the Gemara, a decree lest he make alfas, a language in Scripture, ma’aseh alfas by the sacrifices, no? Ma’aseh machavat, ma’aseh marcheshes, ma’aseh… It doesn’t say alfas? I don’t know, I’ll look it up. You don’t remember? I don’t remember. I’ll ask. No, it doesn’t say.
Anyway, it means that one cooked in it. They come from a city called Fez. Al fasi, right? And the Tosafos Yom Tov is one who… Al fasi means the one from Fez, the one from Fez. Alef, that’s French. Al the, Algeria, whatever. That’s advanced knowledge. And al fasi means one who comes from Fez. And he lived in Fez, that’s all.
Okay, back straight to our matter of the al fasi. Actually, yes, that’s a… There’s such a pot that comes from Fez, one needs to know, that’s something that is china dishes. Pot from the city of Fez. I once heard a shiur from Rav David, he said that the Ashkenazim didn’t know that the city of Fez, so they thought that he was called something after the alfas, but they didn’t know. No, but it could be that the pots here are named after that city, the name Fez. Like in the whites in china who… I heard such a joke. Okay, not a joke, back to our sugya of Torah. Okay.
The Practical Advice of the Rambam – Large Pot
Speaker 1: “Poseach v’nosein l’soch kedeirah gedolah”. But he used it with chametz b’roshin. Okay, he used it with chametz b’roshin, and he says kli rishon. One cooked chametz in it. What does one do? “Nosein l’soch kedeirah gedolah u’memalei aleha mayim”. He says, the Rambam says a practical way how one can, not even does one need each pot extra to go and boil, but one takes a large pot. What does one do? One puts it into a large pot. Is there a lot about how one does? It seems to me like he’s giving advice.
Speaker 2: No, no, that’s the way, there isn’t another way.
Speaker 1: One can take the one vessel and kasher it.
Speaker 2: No, one can’t.
Speaker 1: But can one not.
Speaker 2: Can yes.
Speaker 1: Already, try again, one can’t.
Speaker 2: There’s a way out, but the normal way is, one needs to take it in a large pot…
Speaker 1: Ah, that’s the normal finishing touch that he says.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Discussion: K’vol’o Kach Polto – The Large Pot on the Fire
Speaker 1: One needs to take a large pot, fill it with water, and “marsichan b’sochah, v’achar kach shotfan v’nohagim l’hishtamesh bahen b’matzah”. Then one may use it on Pesach. Here he doesn’t say with matzah. B’matzah. Not that’s Pesach. That came from that, that’s Pesach.
Speaker 2: “Mishtamesh bahem b’mai”? B’Pesach.
Speaker 1: He means to say when one may use it, not which types of foods, matzah foods.
Speaker 2: Exactly, one uses it for matzah. That’s actually how the Rambam calls Pesach chametz u’matzah.
Speaker 1: No, I don’t know. I mean it was. Okay.
The Law of Knives
Speaker 1: One had knives that one used to cut chametz with great sharpness. It’s interesting that he brings here on the side, this comes, he says, this is written in the laws of arayos, he establishes a stringency that one puts a kli rishon one does hag’alah in kli rishon, kli sheini a hag’alah in kli sheini. So it’s not brought in the Gemara in Pesachim. It’s built on the laws of Shulchan Aruch in Yoreh De’ah, he says, he brings. Interesting.
“Marsichan b’sakin”, means apparently that one puts the large vessel on the fire, yes? Okay. So it comes out that the pot is cooked with the same level of heat as it was touched. Aha, a chiddush. Um, knives one doesn’t need to do the whole knife, only the part that touches the sharpness of the… only the sharp part. Like the sharp part needs that because of the sharpness of the knife.
Discussion: Nitzav and Lahav – What Needs to be Kashered
Speaker 1: He says, “asla”, ah, when it’s nitzav on both sides one needs to use with heat. I mean to say if it was b’roshin, he says, it’s not roshin. If it was roshin, that’s the Gemara. One takes it both parts one needs to use opposite method. Both parts?
Speaker 2: Yes, there’s another method, I don’t know.
Speaker 1: What means both parts?
Speaker 2: That’s how it was used with heat, only the sharpness is what touches.
Speaker 1: One needs to learn what’s written, afterwards one will ask questions.
Speaker 2: The halachah that’s written here is… It says further, I haven’t yet had what to ask questions.
Speaker 1: I didn’t say bad things, I don’t know.
Speaker 2: Forget about saying what’s written.
Speaker 1: Okay, let’s learn each piece we’ll begin.
The Gemara in Pesachim About Knives
Speaker 1: First time, in Pesachim, that’s written yes in the Gemara in Pesachim about the knives. The Pri Chadash says that it’s not written in Pesachim at all, but in knives it says, “b’din hapreitah v’hashchazah”. What is this act of preitah? Do you know?
Speaker 2: First time. No.
Speaker 1: The Rav says that it’s permitted. I don’t know. I mean that it’s a scraping. I don’t know what that is. Okay. He says, “Ah, I also don’t make it really new, I make it fresh.” What does he do? “The nitzutz he puts in clay”. What means in clay I don’t know. Clay. “And afterwards I put the handle in boiling water”. I don’t know what means in clay, I don’t know the translation. Um, afterwards the Gemara says that the halachah is that both one does in boiling water. Cleaning one does with something very, he cleans it out something, afterwards he puts it into a fire, in short, he cleans it well until it becomes like new. That’s the word. In practice it comes out that the Gemara brings out that no, one can do both, like washing and like kli rishon.
Discussion: Libun vs. Hag’alah
Speaker 1: Why exactly does one need to put the fire in all these things? I don’t know. Why does washing help more? I don’t know. Ah, one explains that washing is more than kli rishon, it’s a real fire itself. The libun is a real fire itself. Aha. Afterwards there’s the cleaning, which is a whole procedure. The Gemara brings out that no, one just needs to do the whole thing.
Why are you telling me from Rashbam? The Hagahos Maimoniyos brings from Pesachim the Rashbam… hag’alah and libun. I still can’t understand the Rambam.
Rinsing in Cold Water After Hag’alah
Speaker 1: And this is also with uses. By chametz it says, the thing is mag’ilin u’matbilin. That’s the language of the Gemara, mag’ilin u’matbilin v’hen tehorin. No, not necessarily, he meant mag’ilin, that one puts it into a fire.
What is the… apparently this is the same halachah as nosar and chametz. That’s nothing different, right? Why does one need the rinsing afterwards? I don’t know clearly. That you do afterwards also washing in cold. So brings out the Shem HaGedolim. It’s not written in the Gemara explicitly, understood? He doesn’t rinse them.
Discussion: Merikah B’chamin U’shtifah B’tzonen
Speaker 1: Ah, he says in the Mishnah, yes, that’s according to the simple meaning, that one needs to wash it. What’s written in Zevachim “merikah b’chamin u’shtifah b’tzonen”. You said that one doesn’t need to.
Speaker 2: The second cold.
Speaker 1: The second cold, yes. What does the second cold do exactly?
Speaker 2: In any case, he says that the Geonim and Acharonim hold so, like the words of the building, that one needs indeed yes also cold.
Kli Eitz – Why Not Mentioned By Kli Rishon
Speaker 1: Okay, that’s a halachah of kli rishon. Let’s understand what is kli rishon. What is kli matacos, avanim, and kli eitz? Let’s look into kli eitz for a minute. Why isn’t there any kli eitz?
Speaker 2: I understand that one doesn’t use it so nicely.
Speaker 1: Like bowls and cups.
Speaker 2: Yes, bowls and cups is an example that one eats in it, one serves in it, but one doesn’t cook in it.
Speaker 1: Kli matacos, avanim, kli eitz. Why isn’t there any kli eitz?
Speaker 2: One doesn’t cook on wood.
Speaker 1: Ah, it starts to burn. Have you ever tried?
Speaker 2: I haven’t tried, but I mean that it will burn, that’s the simple thing. Cook with a pot of wood? I don’t have plates of wood, I don’t have a pot of wood.
Speaker 1: But kli eitz can mean plates.
Speaker 2: Kli sheini.
Speaker 1: About kli sheini, earlier you said kli rishon. Okay, that means that there isn’t any kli rishon apparently. That’s a kli sheini that one uses sometimes, and exactly there’s a dispute of the poskim, one goes after rov tashmeesho. But it makes very much sense that kli rishon is always metal and stone, like pots that one cooks in, and kli sheini can be wood. Yes?
Speaker 2: Makes sense.
Speaker 1: The Birchas HaBayis you say?
Speaker 2: Not the Birchas HaBayis, but try it out. Take wood and try to cook in it, it will burn.
Speaker 1: I’ve already enjoyed the whole world, I’m many years old, and I’ve never yet seen any pot made of wood.
Speaker 2: I’ve seen of stone.
Speaker 1: Stone there is yes, because porcelain is basically metal. Stone, yes, like for example stone… ovens are made of stone. Stone holds very strongly in heat. A “brick oven” is made of stones. Stone holds very strongly in heat, there is yes. Exactly all the “sourdough” challahs one puts on such a plate of stones. One puts such small thin stones, plain hard stone, that makes it crispy, it makes it better. Quality of the challahs. Okay, but on wood not, and don’t challenge me with wars of our ancestors, like pots and vessels, he gave he gave he gave a large vessel, he gave upon them water, yes he doesn’t say here boiling them inside.
Continuation: The Process of Hag’alah — “Placing Them Inside Until They Expel”
Speaker 1: Okay, but on wood not, and don’t challenge me with wars of our ancestors like pots and vessels, he gives he gives he gave a large vessel, and he gave upon them water. Yes, he doesn’t say here “boiling them inside”, he makes it for a kli rishon, in the whole thing, but he says he places upon them water, so it becomes a wave of a level of kli rishon, because it enters into the hot water in the… not that’s not itself heating or fire. And placing them inside… from where placing them inside… he puts in the small… and placing them inside is interesting language yes, do you see it perhaps written here? Ah, a placing them, not one puts it in! Placing them inside! One leaves it long enough, until it expels…
Translation
Ah, the Chafetz Chaim didn’t surprise me that Menachem… he puts the vessels in the water, he already said earlier in Menachem. If he says Menachem… one leaves them over… he already put them in earlier… one leaves them over in the meantime… a teshuvah pelutei. He wants to say here basically that a momentary time is not enough. It doesn’t say how much the measure is, some measure of time must be…
Look… to go out here… I’m looking. When I look here, it was in the halacha. Because when the halacha, make sure to look and make sure that there’s no more blood to drink. Eh, I’m not saying that the blood is something that one can actually see with the eyes how it’s coming out, some blood, but miyucham et socher, and one must let it be for a bit of time so that it gives a chance for the blood, because I’m looking at washing off the blood, because it can be freshly boiled, yes?
Speaker 2: Yes? Because the water has absorbed not good things?
Speaker 1: Yes, that’s the same thing it says earlier, the verse says it. We learn it from a halacha of… so it says a verse regarding… we learn it from a verse regarding kodashim something. So he says, so it only goes regarding kodashim, and here there is no such law.
Speaker 2: Yes, he says there is no such law, it’s a practical thing something.
Speaker 1: Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m looking at… I can’t be certain with matzah. But I say, in certain ways one understands very well why it’s necessary to put in cold water afterwards, because here you’re talking in ways that one put in a few chametz vessels in a pot and it cooked. And afterwards he says “ad sheyiflot”, yes, how is there now chametz in the water? I would have thought it’s certainly a question.
Speaker 2: Yes, that’s… that’s just a stringency. We’re talking about a stringency of a stringency. He’s not saying something… he’s not saying that one must go from the basic law to do so.
Speaker 1: No, it’s not so. It’s clear. I don’t understand what is the… the scholarly trick. It became chametz, it’s no longer chametz. Look, that’s one way. Sometimes one doesn’t need to search for such things. How does one clean something? That’s how one cleans. That’s one thing. The Rambam asks his wife, “How does one clean something?” The wife says, “One cleans with soap.” The Rambam asks, “One prepares for the Rambam already”. So that’s the basic thing, not some great wisdom for all these things. That’s how one cleans, that’s how one cleans. That’s not hard to understand.
Hagahot Maimoniyot: The Problem of Keli Sheni
Speaker 1: Yes, the Hagahot Maimoniyot in one place says that the halacha is only good when one knows for certain that it was only in a keli sheni. What is there so many pots? What, perhaps you don’t remember? Perhaps sometimes one used the pot to stir? He’s actually right. I know that you’re busy in the kitchen, and you sit then in the beit midrash in the world of thought. One brings, but one stirs sometimes with a spoon in the pot, it happens sometimes. One takes one’s spoon and doesn’t give a stir. It’s still a keli sheni, how one uses sometimes.
Speaker 2: Ah, ah, the Rema doesn’t talk about that. The Rema says that it seems that one doesn’t go according to rov tashmisho, and he brings from the Rabbeinu Yonah and others, but one must make sure that it was never a keli rishon.
Discussion: Why Not Rov Tashmisho?
Speaker 1: It’s interesting. Why would one say that one should go according to rov tashmisho? If there is a thing that with more heat there is a stronger absorption, on the contrary, it’s more likely that one should say as you say, that one goes according to the majority. But if you say that with a higher level of heat there is a greater absorption, if you say that the Sages don’t know, I said, I’m not a physicist. There is a thing like absorptions, there is a thing that it can absorb to different heat, to different sharpness. I mean that one should make from that a strong enactment that one must wash out very well the best one can. If one would have only said if and only if one wouldn’t have known exactly how the absorptions work, you’re right. But seemingly one cannot say that yes, they had some certain one, the sage of the town who understood physics, he said.
The answer is however, look in your… No, the answer is, you’re right that just so next time can… if one says that heat takes out, it’s simple when each time you stir into a pot in the soup, the spoon spits out the previous soup and it absorbs the new soup. It doesn’t work exactly so. Because one doesn’t think about simple things. It’s not each time, it’s not from one time it doesn’t become dirty, and from two times it doesn’t become dirty.
Discussion: What is Bli’ot — Physical Reality or Law?
Possibility A: Bli’ot is an Actual Physical Thing
Speaker 1: I can say three things. I can say that we’re talking here about something nothing that we have a hard time understanding, because our things are more solid and better quality. Because if metal vessels, stone vessels were weaker quality than ours, and ours were more porous, there was actually a lot of room for absorption. And even, by the way, you can see that it absorbs. Take a stone and you pour water on it, you’ll see that it absorbs water, because it has small cracks… Take a cement brick, there are there microscopic small cracks, places to absorb things.
Speaker 2: Cement is not stone, you know. Keli avanim, avanim doesn’t mean cement. As he says, it became a stone. There are stones that happened through creation, because stones took long to happen, pieces stick together. What? A stone is not a brick, a stone is a stone, it’s a concept. A brick that people make, I’m saying a stone that also made itself over many years, and it lies under the pressure. Approximately like people make bricks, approximately the same way the stones were made. Why? Pressure with heat with years. It’s not just theories. That’s how I understand. What you read up above, I know, that’s another thing. It’s the opposite, it’s today, for example quartz, one makes from many small stones pressed together and epoxied. But it’s approximately imitating the original creation of a few years.
Speaker 1: Yes, one hundred percent. Because minerals and all things develop over many years. Okay, okay, okay, let’s go back to the sugya here.
Possibility B: Bli’ot is a Law, and the Halachot are Leniencies
Speaker 1: No, but I tried to say something. One can say that bli’ot is really really an actual physical thing, and today it’s hard for us to understand because we are a bit less, but it can be certain vessels where there is really clearly an absorption. Or one can say that it’s all a law, perhaps there is bli’ot and we don’t know exactly. It’s all simple things, we are very accustomed that things should be relatively very appropriate.
By the way, incidentally, when you go to a place where you cook authentically, when you cook on fire, it doesn’t become so easily clean. Your oven is always spotlessly clean, for example. But an oven is dirty. And when you do hag’alah of your pot, cooking vessels and pots, it’s… because that’s not what the Torah talks about. The Torah talks, all these halachot talk about things that are really dirty. When one says “minhig hu adom shachor”, it’s dirty, you see that it’s dirty. It’s simple things. It doesn’t talk about clean things where one imagines that there is bli’ot, it talks about dirty things.
Speaker 2: And if so, the halacha should have said more simply: make sure it’s clean. That’s the point, that’s what you want to say.
Speaker 1: No, because the halacha is a leniency. The halacha is a leniency, the halacha says that even if one still sees a bit dirty, that’s the point. It’s not cleaned enough. The halacha doesn’t only talk about what is clean, the halacha talks about why it’s not so clean. Clean is only when you see that it’s like new. You made it like new, that’s what the Rabbis write. By the way, I have a patent, you make it look new. That’s a whole patent. Normally it doesn’t look new. If a person says that my vessel is new, one doesn’t need to ask him how it became new. It’s new. But if it’s not new, the friend says.
By the way, can’t you see a difference between an old spoon and a new spoon? You can see. But one cannot see through bli’ot, one can see through scratches. I didn’t talk about scratches. Dirt? From bli’ot one cannot see. A person who can pray well, he has a good taste in the morning. If you have a good taste in the morning, and so on.
Discussion: The Reality of Dirt and the Laws of Hag’alah
Speaker 1: Now dirt, what goes into this matter. Now, why does it become dirty? It’s automatically, what is not an actual going in, but it’s in a normal way it becomes dirty. I in yeshiva, every day the plate was dirty, the cook couldn’t finish cleaning well. It’s really there in reality, one heats up every Shabbat. And all these halachot that this is enough, I mean it’s being said that it’s in a way that it remains a bit dirty always. Not as a stringency, but always as a leniency. I have a generally good Torah, I only came to say leniencies, not stringencies.
Okay, anyways, what is the thing? One doesn’t go into all these things. Here one takes simple things. What here are two takes, I spoke in before that the rov tashmisho has no decree by itself, and goes according to rov tashmisho. It’s sometimes one stirred the cholent with the spoon, and afterwards it became for cholent. That’s the reality, right? Sometimes yes. If one uses it a lot, sometimes yes. The vessels that one uses by the grill, yes? I wouldn’t use it for something else. Not for dairy, because it becomes dirty sometimes. But the thing is, but it becomes dirty, because the dirt becomes immediately burned from there. Very good, no problem. That’s not written actual things.
Let’s say that this is the leniency which is dear to our end. You see the rule. Look at him, it’s not possible to do at home. Perhaps it’s possible what absorbs chemicals and in many ovens that one uses a lot, that it uses for a restaurant in the old cooking, is something more involved. Even a pot, because how, even a pot, the previous one used. I was in Europe, but I read about a pot that one cooks the soup for a thousand years. Truly. It stands on an ember, I keep adding, over and over, because it always eats something, a food doesn’t stop at night. Yes, aesthetically. It’s aesthetic, but that’s presumably the simple meaning of writing.
Speaker 2: No, no, it makes a lot of sense. It can be that an old pot one managed so. Exactly.
Speaker 1: One sees in certain restaurants, certain… I tell you, the frying pans, there are good frying pans that one can clean, it’s special non-stick. A normal frying pan, it remains dirty always. You can’t wash it off. You actually soak it one from last night, one can read it. But essentially,
Keli Cheres — Used with Chametz in Hot
Halacha 25 — Keli Cheres That Were Used with Chametz in Hot
Speaker 1:
I know how much non-kosher lies in the houses.
Speaker 2:
Yes. You can clean it. I tell you, that’s what the poskim write.
Speaker 1:
No, no, it makes a lot of sense, because it can be that once one managed so.
Speaker 2:
Exactly. Once one managed with these things.
Digression: Frying Pans and Hag’alah
Speaker 1:
I tell you, the frying pan, there are good frying pans that one can clean, there is special non-stick. A normal frying pan to remain with stuck foods, that can’t be, it’s a prohibition of absorption from last night, one can think. I don’t know. But essentially, we can say very well, the laws of hag’alah say how one makes it yes clean. How does one make it yes clean? One burns it out well beforehand. It’s dear prohibition, it’s not prohibitions within prohibitions, it’s dear prohibition. There are prohibitions here, one saw nothing.
Keli Cheres Today — Porcelain and Plastic
Speaker 1:
Keli cheres is the Rambam, but keli cheres, by the way, in the calculation is exactly the old keli cheres. You see that keli cheres is really a thing that holds a taste long. One can feel it. We don’t have any keli cheres from that. We only have a material of keli cheres, like porcelain, which people argue what this is a keli cheres, what this is a piece. The old, the real keli cheres, you see that this is a plastic. By the same thing a plastic, is also possible to become clean. It says, it depends which, there is which plastic. The smooth containers is not possible. It’s a plastic that is not clean, it doesn’t have the gloss, it’s not fully gone in. Perhaps there is a patent, I’ll give a plan how to make.
Innovation: Making New
Speaker 1:
Ah, this has one innovation yesterday, my brother told me this innovation. He says that one can make it new, it’s new vessels, and if new vessels it’s not a question. If you have a way how to make new, it’s new. It looks new, every one who will buy in the store will think that it’s new. It’s like two levels in repentance (teshuva), repentance from love and repentance from fear. It’s like new, it becomes a new creation. There is a breaking and there is an awakening.
Rabbeinu Menuach — Cheres with Samech or Shin
Speaker 2:
Okay, keli cheres, he thinks that one must finish that it also goes. Okay, keli cheres.
Speaker 1:
No, cheres. I’m talking about keli cheres with a shin, he wrote earlier with a samech.
Speaker 2:
Yes, and he says, a rabbi a righteous one, Rabbi Mordechai of blessed memory, the claim. He says that the Rambam writes always what it says in the Torah. For example, the Rabbeinu Menuach says that keli cheres is with a samech, he didn’t see in this Rambam any shin. There are certain written.
Language of the Rambam — Keli Cheres That Were Used with Chametz in Hot
Speaker 2:
Okay. Cheres that were used with chametz in hot. Whether a keli rishon, like pots, whether a keli sheni, like bowls, whether cups that one drinks in them beer, and the beer is in hot, means living. There are those who say that keli cheres is so more, even in this there is in the Shulchan Aruch a leniency, regarding intoxication because of the beer, there is no difference. One who thinks about the matzah, he will use from the Rambam. This is a stringency.
Comparison Between the Two Halachot — Chametz Cold vs. Chametz Hot
Speaker 2:
Even now we understand the halacha of keli cheres versus the previous halacha of keli cheres. The previous is chametz cold, and now he talks, ah, one already has chametz in hot. Earlier we mentioned chametz cold, one may use the matzah cold, except a type of cold that is however like hot, which is a strong vinegar. And here he said another thing, until what one bakes on what is already yes in hot, there is a way how to kosher this. But used with chametz in hot, one may not use even cold. This is very clear, this is very clear, the part is very clear, one must put it away after Pesach. That’s seemingly what one understands.
Biv Shel Cheres — Why is There a Way to Kosher It
Speaker 2:
But it’s interesting that the biv shel cheres one did yes find a way how to do this. One didn’t say about this, like all other keli cheres put them away, have another. But biv shel cheres one sees that perhaps because it’s more a… it’s hard for a person to find, it’s a larger vessel, there is yes on this a trick. There is on this a trick that one can do for this.
Speaker 1:
Much of this is actually practical that keli cheres it says that either because one cannot take it out well, there is no full work doesn’t work well, or there are certain things that the halacha on this says that because one is afraid that the person is concerned that it will be broken by him, and it was previous years worthwhile. But yes, here he talks about hot. He puts them away after Pesach and rinses them and uses them. So if it was used with chametz in hot, certainly one may not even use cold.
Speaker 2:
Right, the whole question is only, so therefore it’s certain. The question is when the Rambam says earlier that used with chametz cold, with using matzah with chametz. So, seemingly the second opinion of Magen Avraham is right, that it doesn’t say any language that one should think that… what does this say?
Speaker 1:
Yes. That’s the question.
Discussion: Challah Cover — Dispute in the Gemara
Speaker 2:
So, here there is a dispute in the Gemara. The challah cover one may also, the challah cover that one can use it on chametz, one must keep it, right?
Speaker 1:
No, that’s what the Gemara says.
English Translation
Speaker 2:
Seemingly, no, seemingly the opposite, not the opposite. Seemingly, one uses it when there is chametz (leavened bread), one certainly may not have it. One doesn’t have any chametz over Pesach (Passover), why? But I see here that there is a dispute about this in the Gemara (Talmud). Rava said one must break it completely. Why? Because it’s bal yera’eh u’val yimatzei (the prohibition of seeing or possessing chametz). And Shmuel said one can put it away. Shmuel said, one uses it, ah, again. Rava said “yishbor” (he should break it). Right, I forgot it, yes. Amar Rav, kli she’darko l’hishtamesh bo b’Pesach, yishbor. Says the Gemara, this is a decree, gezeirah shema yilmod bo b’yameinu. Shmuel amar, mah shimush yesh bo? V’od, b’yameinu mah shelomeinu?
The Story with Shmuel and the Pot Sellers
Speaker 2:
This is Shmuel’s argument. Listen to the story of Shmuel, yes? Shmuel told the sellers of pots or something, that he should sell cheaply, and if not he will expound like Rabbi Shimon that what? That one can use after Pesach. What is the point? I’m thinking what the point of the Gemara is.
So this is the Gemara. Ah, he’s already not asking everyone, the Magen Avraham, why doesn’t it help like bitul chametz (nullification of chametz)? It’s somewhat similar, he says why isn’t it similar? What is bitul chametz? Why isn’t it different from bitul chametz? Why doesn’t the same heter (leniency) work? Why doesn’t that heter work here?
Rabbeinu Yonah — New Earthenware Vessels from the Kilns
Speaker 2:
Ah, and machzirin l’kivshunan (returning them to their kiln) one can yes. But he says that there it works yes. Perhaps he doesn’t give enough. Ah, but seemingly, this indeed stands here, so he said. Seemingly he essentially held yes, and essentially therefore the normal earthenware vessels, the large earthenware vessels which he seemingly held, he is concerned that you won’t do it properly, you won’t break it at all. You won’t, you won’t allow yourself to do it. You won’t break it at all.
Ah, one can say that this is the point. One can say that with earthenware vessels, where you always put them in the oven, you don’t have such a strong fear.
Speaker 1:
No.
Speaker 2:
Therefore, one can say that with other things one fears that you won’t do it properly, and therefore you won’t do it. He says that even, Rabbeinu Yonah says that even though it says kli cheres chadashim min ha’kivshanot iz muter (new earthenware vessels from the kilns are permitted), because then one indeed makes them like new. But what doesn’t one do, because it’s not worthwhile. The tircha (effort) is too weak, in short. Here there is no tircha. You don’t need to be concerned that you won’t do it properly. Fine.
Speaker 1:
Oh, they should make more. They used to make. Anyway.
Discussion: Min B’she’eino Mino
Speaker 2:
And what is the point of min b’she’eino mino (one type mixed with another type), I don’t understand. The dispute that was among the Amoraim?
Discussion: Why Did Rav Say Yishbor?
Speaker 2:
And this is the question on Rav. Why didn’t Rav say that one must break it? Because Rav held that since there is chametz in it, it doesn’t become nullified. Therefore, it’s chametz on Pesach, one must break it. And after Pesach, if one found it, must one break it? No, must one break it before Pesach. Why is bitul and all these things that exist?
Ah, he asks exactly the opposite. Other tricks, selling to a non-Jew.
Speaker 1:
No, selling to a non-Jew didn’t occur to them. That’s later tricks. He’s just playing around. No, it indeed says that one learns, it’s brought, but not such a trick. Ah, it indeed says, yes. In Sephardic books it says that one learns. Just playing around. In short, the question is whether chametz she’avar alav ha’Pesach (chametz that passed over Pesach) is forbidden from the Torah. This was indeed the dispute of Rav and Shmuel, which the Rambam explains this. And the Shulchan Aruch. In short, this is what.
The Story with Shmuel — Was He Right?
Speaker 1:
And this is a beautiful story that the Gemara, that Shmuel said that he’s going to expound that it’s permitted, and the pot sellers won’t make their… cheap enough, yes, and the Gemara asks, was he right? Why… Do you hear? The house, there was a dispute of Rav and Shmuel. Rav held, I think I remember.
Earthenware Vessels as the Old-Fashioned Disposables
Speaker 1:
Earthenware vessels are the old-fashioned version of disposables. Yes, bnei levanim (sons of bricks), one takes today a bit of clay, and one makes from it. It shouldn’t be that it’s free, but it’s very cheap here. One finds before this, and one finds so much of this. Ah, right. Old pottery, but what is… what was such a thing for… what what does he seek otherwise? It’s not a known thing. It’s the idea that wives because it’s not, what it’s a parable. Because one needs to use it for a parable. Sometimes, one needs to use a cornerstone. The one who carries stones, okay. Anyway, so the point is, one can afford. You don’t lose in a hipshet. Or was the custom like Rav. Because one broke vessels every Pesach. One buys new, one buys new, one buys new vessels before Pesach.
Shmuel’s Argument to the Sellers
Speaker 1:
Shmuel said, for the… Listen, Shmuel was very bold. He said to the vessel sellers. They should know that, if they don’t make the prices cheap, he’ll tell everyone that one doesn’t need to buy new ones. The Gemara asks, was he indeed right? The Gemara asks, was he right? Therefore, and the rabbis need to change the halacha, so that Jews want cheaper vessels not to change. They say when they hold that it’s only a stringency regarding the rabbinical prohibition.
Conclusion
Speaker 1:
It was an interesting thing, because I’m doing something like… It was interesting, because seemingly the picture of erev Pesach (Passover eve) and the rabbinical prohibition looked different.
Continuation: Shmuel’s Position Regarding the Measure of Matzah
The Gemara asks, he is indeed right, Shmuel indeed holds that it’s kosher, why should the rabbis forbid it? One will conduct oneself like Rav. But he threatened, he said he’s going to say his opinion.
What do we learn here that the rabbis need to change the halacha so that Jews can buy cheaper? Not change, they say when they hold that it’s only a stringency regarding the rabbinical prohibition.
Erev Pesach: Destroying Chametz and Breaking Earthenware Vessels
It’s an interesting thing, because seemingly the picture of erev Pesach in Rav’s time looked different, everyone came to the middle of the city to the place where one burns the chametz, and there was a huge fire where one broke earthenware vessels, yes? Just as perhaps it was like in Yovel (Jubilee) where one breaks vessels, but breaking vessels.
It seems it was a good business for the vessel sellers. Yes yes, they made money. But not in the right way he said, he’ll make it so they won’t make money. Earthenware vessels one can indeed re-boil, one can remake them, one can take the pieces and remake them. It’s not something that is ziluta d’kifsuna (degradation of the kiln).
The Maharsha says it was zecher l’churban (remembrance of the destruction). This was indeed the question, that this was indeed the question that the rabbis, if you’ll be lenient and hold that essentially the measure of matzah is kosher, can you tell the sellers to hold back, they shouldn’t lie and make, they shouldn’t charge people, they should hold the k’zayit (olive-sized) measures. Why should you forbid? I asked, he threatened the rabbis.
Law 26: Kashering a Large First Vessel
Okay. Twenty-six, short, this is a Gemara, a broad Gemara, and this is a practical thing. I don’t mean practical, but it’s perhaps a certain leniency, right? Earthenware vessels, a first vessel is boiling l’chatchilah (from the outset), and one uses a first vessel l’chatchilah, but here there is a great fear.
So the Gemara says: Makif lah sefel shel tahor al sfatah mi’bachutz, v’shomet yado mitoch sefel shel tahor, u’memalei mayim ad she’yagi’u ha’mayim al sfatah, u’martei’ach ha’mayim b’tochah, v’dayo. (He surrounds it with a vessel of pure [water] on its rim from outside, and places his hand inside the vessel of pure [water], and fills water until the water reaches its rim, and boils the water inside it, and that’s sufficient.)
Discussion: The Wisdom of Rabbi Akiva
I thought to myself, this is a Gemara in Avodah Zarah, what stands such a great thing? The Gemara has stories like this by Rabbi Akiva such a thing, they did this, they did this, they did this, did they think of such a reasoning? And he says, but min chacham la’avad kol milta (from a wise man to do everything), Rabbi Akiva is the greatest rabbi. Do you understand what I told you?
That the great part you need an external community? Yes, that the rabbi is more, but this is double and double. Essentially, the part around the thousand is like this is perhaps also only when it boils over the top. And the same way one can make another such wisdom. When you grasp that this is seemingly not so, it doesn’t stand so.
Explanation Regarding Charoset
Ah, he says very nicely now, Rav Rabbi Natan says very nicely, that here he makes a special section in the laws of matzah, to say that one must make a special dough. Because certainly Pesach one cannot make in dough that is chametz. Ah, ah, ah. But what one does is mishum zecher l’charoset (in remembrance of charoset).
Anyway, this is the whole matter. And he says that the same charoset, certainly has a strong vinegar, certainly has sharpness. The only thing is that charoset is something sweet l’hamtik (to sweeten), to remove the sharpness of the maror (bitter herbs). Certainly it doesn’t remove the sharpness, it removes the… I don’t know. And the charoset that we make, we indeed make it sweet, because that’s the custom. He has an explanation from Rabbi David which he removes. I don’t know, perhaps this isn’t the correct charoset of the Gemara.
Conclusion: What Will We Learn Further?
What are we going to learn now? A bit of Shemonah Perakim (Eight Chapters), or are we going to learn the next laws? Or are we going to learn on the Haggadah? Or can one learn on the Haggadah not only practically? Yes, yes, yes. What is nothing in the middle. One minute.