En "light" el día catorce (de Nissan) [es decir, la noche seguida del catorce. El tanna lo llama "luz", eufemísticamente, como a un ciego se le llama "sagi nehor" ("lleno de luz")], se busca a jametz [Algunos explican, para que él no transgreda el veredicto contra ser jametz visto y encontrado en su casa en Pesaj. Y aunque la anulación (bitul) en sí misma es suficiente, tememos que pueda encontrar un bocado de elección (de jametz), lamentar su anulación, pensar en comerlo y estar en transgresión del veredicto contra jametz visto y encontrado. Por lo tanto, se busca jametz para eliminarlo del mundo. Otros dicen que el motivo de la búsqueda es un decreto, para que no encuentre jametz en su casa y se lo coma, sin estar acostumbrado a separarse del jametz los otros días del año.] A la luz de una vela. [La gemara deriva esto de su escritura aquí (Éxodo 12:19): "No se encontrará levadura", y en otros lugares (Génesis 44:12): "y se encontró la copa". Así como el hallazgo fue a través de la búsqueda, a saber. (Ibid.): "Y él buscó ... y fue encontrado", el hallazgo aquí es a través de la búsqueda, y "buscar" es (óptimamente) con una vela, a saber. (Proverbios 20:27): "La vela de Di-s es el alma de un hombre; busca en todos sus rincones escondidos". Y ordenaron que la búsqueda se llevara a cabo por la noche porque es cuando todos se encuentran en casa. Y la luz de una vela es mejor para buscar de noche que de día, para "¿De qué sirve una vela de día?" Sin embargo, si uno no buscó la noche anterior al catorce y lo hace por la mañana, también debe hacerlo a la luz de una vela.] Cualquier lugar donde no se traiga jametz no requiere buscarlo. ¿Y por qué dijeron [abajo] que dos filas [de jarras] en una bodega [dispuestas una encima de la otra requieren búsqueda, si algún lugar donde no se traiga jametz no requiere búsqueda? Ellos respondieron: Estamos hablando de] un lugar donde se trae jametz, [como una bodega que suministra vino para la mesa de uno. A veces, el mayordomo está a punto de servir vino con su pan en la mano, cuando descubre que no tiene vino y baja a la bodega para traer más.] Beth Shammai dice: Dos filas en la cara de toda la bodega. [Era la forma en que los que almacenaban el vino organizaban sus jarras fila por fila hasta que cubrían todo el piso de la bodega, después de lo cual regresaban y colocaban jarra sobre jarra en el mismo patrón hasta el techo. Las "dos filas" de Beth Shammai son la fila exterior desde el suelo hasta el techo, y luego la fila superior, la longitud y el ancho de la bodega, de modo que las "dos filas" son como una gamma griega, una perpendicular; la otra, horizontal.] Beth Hillel dice: Las dos filas superiores exteriores, [la fila más alta cerca del techo, frente a la entrada, y la fila debajo de eso. Y aquellos dentro, él no busca en absoluto. Y de los exteriores, busca solo en las dos filas superiores.]
Tosafot Yom Tov on Mishnah Pesachim
The night of the 14th of Nisan - the Rav Bartenura wrote that the Hebrew word 'ohr' chosen here to begin the Mishna of Pesachim is a pleasant, euphemistic word that means night or darkness. Rambam wrote that this was done so that Pesachim would not begin with an absence, darkness being the absence of light. HaRav Zerachiya haLevi and the Ran wrote that this was done based on the verse in Tehillim 119:39, "The beginning of your word gives light."
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Bartenura on Mishnah Pesachim
אור לארבעה עשר – the night of its morrow will be the fourteenth [of Nisan], and the Tanna [of our Mishnah] calls night, “light” in the manner that we call a blind person “capable of eye-sight,” and he took/used the more appropriate expression.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Pesachim
Introduction
As do several tractates, Pesahim begins chronologically with the events that lead up to the beginning of Pesah namely checking the house to make sure there is no chametz on the night before Pesah. As many of you know, this is still a custom today. Even though most Jews have thoroughly checked their homes for chametz and removed (or put it away to be sold no one sold their chametz in mishnaic and talmudic times) they still ritually check the home with a candle, or perhaps a flashlight, and remove any chametz found on the search.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Pesachim
בודקין את החמץ – there are those who explain the reason of searching [for the Hametz/leavened products] in order that he not transgress “lest any [leaven] be found” (see Exodus 13:7: “[Throughout the seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten; no leavened bread shall be found with you,] and no leaven shall be [seen, literally] found/ולא יראה לך [in all your territory,) and “lest it (i.e., leaven) be seen” (see Exodus 12:19 – “שבעת ימים שאר לא ימצא בבתיכם” /”No leaven shall be found in your houses for seven days…”) if there would be leavened products in his home during Passover. And even though mere nullification is sufficient, we are suspicious lest he find a white and delicate bread (i.e., a roll) and he will reconsider his nullification and think about it to eat it and violate [the Biblical injunction of] “lest it be seen with you, lest it be found with you” (see Exodus 13:7 and Exodus 12:19 above). Therefore, we search for the leavened products in order that he may remove it from the world. And there are those who say that the reason for searching [for Hametz] is a decree lest he find leavened products in his house during Passover and would eat them, since he is not accustomed to abstain from them all the rest of the days of the year.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Pesachim
On the evening of the fourteenth [of Nissan] they search they house for chametz by the light of a lamp. The house is to be thoroughly searched for chametz the evening before the fourteenth of Nissan, the day on which the chametz must be destroyed. In rabbinic times, a lamp was considered the most effective means by which to search the corners of the house, the nooks and crannies, the cracks and crevices to discover hidden chametz. Their houses were obviously less lit than ours and they had fewer windows. Candlelight would, at least according to the Mishnan, have been most effective. Furthermore, at night most people are home from work and can participate in searching for the chametz. Finally, we would do well to remember that people kept far less food in their homes and generally had far simpler material lives than we do now. It may just be that they didn’t even need to begin cleaning at all until the evening before Pesah. Ahh, the good old days!
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Bartenura on Mishnah Pesachim
לאור הנר – In the Gemara ( Talmud Pesahim 2a), it derives that the search for Hametz must be by the light of a candle, since it is written here (Exodus 12:12: "שאר לא ימצא" / “no leaven shall be found” and it is written there (Genesis 44:12): “וימצא הגביע [באמתחת בנימן] / “and the goblet turned up in Benjamin’s bag,” Just as “something found” which is said there, is through searching, as it says, ‘And [the goblet] turned up,” so too, “something found” which is mentioned here, is through searching, and searching is done by a candle, as it is written (Proverbs 20:17)– "נר ה' נשמת אדם"/”The life-breath of man is the lamp (literally, “candle”) of God [revealing the innermost parts].” And they established, that the search is at night, since at night all the people are found in their homes, and the light of a candle is nicer for a search than during the day, for a lamp at noon – what good is it? But however, if he did not search [for Hametz] on the night of the fourteenth [of Nisan] and he searched on the fourteenth in the morning, he has to search also by the light of a candle.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Pesachim
Every place into which chametz is not brought does not require searching, There is no need to check places into which chametz is never or almost never brought.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Pesachim
ולמה אמרו – further on in our Mishnah
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English Explanation of Mishnah Pesachim
So why did they rule: two rows of the wine cellar [must be searched]? [This is actually] a place into which chametz might be taken. The mishnah raises a difficulty with the previous statement. There is an older mishnah according to which two rows of the wine cellar must be searched. We would think that the wine cellar is a place into which chametz is not brought and therefore there is no need for it to be searched. The mishnah answers that this older mishnah refers to a cellar into which chametz actually is brought.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Pesachim
שתי שורות – of wine jugs that are arranged this one on top of that in the wine store-room/cellar one must search between them, for after we said [in the Mishnah], “every place where we don’t bring in Hametz, there is no need for a search,” why did they require of us to search there? And we respond: They did not say [that we do not have to search] other than in a store-room/cellar where we bring in leavened products/Hametz, like a store-room/cellar from which he supplies wine for his table and the sometimes when the servant stands to pour it and his bread is in his hand , and when the wine is finished, he enters into the store-room/cellar to bring wine.
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English Explanation of Mishnah Pesachim
Bet Shammai say: two rows over the front of the whole cellar; But Bet Hillel say: the two outer rows, which are the uppermost. In the final section of the mishnah, Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel debate how much of the wine cellar must be searched. There are two interpretations to this debate in the Talmud. According to the first interpretation, Bet Shammai says that they search the entire first row, from ceiling to floor and the row behind it. Both these rows are checked from wall to wall. According to the second interpretation, the two rows are perpendicular to each other the top row and the row next to the entrance. The sages also debate the interpretation of Bet Hillel. Some explain that according to Bet Hillel they check the top two rows, whereas others hold that they check the top row and the one behind it.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Pesachim
שתי שורות על פני [כל] המרתף – It is way of those who store wine to arrange the wine jugs row by row until they fill all the floor of the store-room/cellar and you go pack and place wine jug on top of wine jug, so that lower rows will be like the upper rows up until the ceiling beam. And the two rows that the School of Shammai mentioned is the outermost row from the ground until the top of the beam, and goes back and searches [for Hametz] the uppermost wine jugs over the length and width of the store-room/cellar, and as a result, the two rows are like the Greek GAM/gamma, one row is standing up and the other row is lying down.
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Bartenura on Mishnah Pesachim
שתי שורות החיצונות – The highest row nearest the ceiling beam which looks out at the face of the opening which is lower than it. And those [jugs] which are inside [of this] do not require searching at all, and from the outermost [jugs] he does not search but only the two uppermost ones alone.
