The positive commandment to rid ourselves of leavened bread raises an issue we have seen before, that of the superfluity (superfluousness?) of giving an aseh when a lo ta`aseh has already proscribed that state. If I am already not allowed to own hamets on Pesah because of the prohibition of bal year’eh, why should the Torah also command me to positively get rid of hamets, the issue of tashbitu? Minhat Hinukh, in Mitsvah 9, discusses this issue (as elsewhere) from a technical halakhic perspective. Since the prohibition of bal yera’eh does not incur karet, he can imagine the Torah adding an `aseh to avoid the problem of aseh doheh lo ta`aseh, where another positive commandment could allow us to transgress this prohibition. He also wonders whether we might have a positive obligation to own some hamets before Pesah so as to get rid of it for the purposes of this mitsvah (the prohibition would just mean not to own it, whereas the aseh would put some religious value on actively ridding ourselves of it).

In these sheets, we have consistently suggested that asehs which parallel lo ta`asehs indicate a positive spiritual value to the act; it is not just that hamets on Pesah is a problem, but recognizing our need to rid ourselves of that hamets is a positive spiritual act as well. For that to be true in this case, we would have to find some positive religious value in getting rid of hamets. Two simple suggestions spring to mind, although each assumes a particular central aspect to hamets.

First, the notion of hamets as a sign of the yetser hara is well established in Jewish tradition. The phrase se-`or she-ba-isah used in the gemara Berakhot 17a, where it is included in the post-amidah supplications of R. Alexandrai. That particular request—that God save us from the se`or she-ba-isah so that we can properly fulfill His will—is included in Seder R. Amram and Mahzor Vitry. Our version of elokai netsor, in other words, arose relatively recently, and involved weeding out other personal post-amidah prayers also recited by important Jewish figures.

Returning to the question of hamets’ significance, Radbaz 3:546, explicitly ties that phrase of se-`or she-ba-isah to hamets. Trying to explain the multiple rules set up by the Torah regarding hamets (that we must get rid of it, cannot own it over the course of the holiday, and, of course, cannot eat or get any benefit from it), he eventually cites midrashim that connect it to the se-`or she-ba-`isah. In that version, the point of the prohibitions of hamets would be to heighten our awareness of our yetser hara and the need to control or vanquish it. The positive value of the `aseh would be pointing out to us that the effort of awareness is itself part of the point, not only the result of being rid of the hamets in time for the holiday.

That tradition of how to interpret hamets has always bothered me somewhat because it ignores hamets’ complete permissibility during the rest of the year. It is not the case, for example, that we see eating of bread, other than on Pesah, as something to be limited, resisted, or engaged in with a measure of sadness because it shows us giving in to our human nature. Bread is the staff of life, the basis for our needing to make a birkat haMazon, the warp and woof of our nutritious lives. If it carries the connotation of the yetser hara, why only on Pesah? In addition, the prayer said after the amidah that I mentioned before was said throughout the year, not only on Pesah. The phrase se`or she-ba-isah, then, consistently stood for the yetser hara, even at times when hamets was completely permissible; why should it be translated from metaphor into physical reality only on Pesah?

I suggest that we find another explanation of hamets’ symbolism, based on a more careful consideration of the Torah’s prohibition. We tend to think, perhaps because the Torah says so explicitly, that we eat matsah on Pesah because the Jews did not have time to fully bake their bread on the way out of Egypt. Yet the commandment to avoid hamets was instituted even before that event. So, too, the eating of the first Paschal sacrifice was performed be-hipazon, with a sense of hurriedness, even though they did not leave Egypt until the next morning, be-etsem hayom, so that it was not out of any practical need to hurry, but was nonetheless commanded by Hashem.

Rather than indicating an actual rush to leave, hipazon might inculcate a valuable sense of time-pressure in the performance of this (and other) mitsvot. In that sense, the practices of this holiday are meant to remind us of a particular value we need to maintain within our relationship to God. While relaxation and calm is useful in many areas, a central value in our performance of mitsvot should be doing them with all appropriate speed. Pesah, the season in which we relive our first national experiences with God, is also a time when the Torah might want us to reinvigorate our commitment to proper hipazon in performing mitzvot. In that context, the phrase mitsvah haba le-yadkha al tahamitsenah, when a mitsvah becomes available to you, do not delay its performance, interestingly uses the rare, but perhaps conceptually crucial, verb of tahmitsenah, with the obvious roots in hamets).

Hamets and its parallel, relaxation(it is, after all, bread that we can allow to rise, as opposed to matsah, which we must watch carefully from the moment we start making it) , are not inherently bad, which is why we may eat it freely during the rest of the year. Were we allow it to dominate our mitsvah observance, however, we would be acting problematically lax. Pausing once a year, wiping it out completely and paying careful attention to the need for its opposite, zerizut, is meant, I would suggest, to restore balance to our relationship with God. Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanukkah.