Countdown to Pesach 5: The Right to MY Food

We do two things with our Chametz. One is we are “mevatel” our chametz. We cancel out any rights we have to the chametz we own. And we also destroy the chametz. You may ask, once we are mevatel the chametz, once we cancel any rights we have to the chametz, must we destroy it? Or, if we will destroy it, why do we have to be mevatel it?

So the reason you have to be mevatel it, you have to abrogate any rights you have to the chametz after you destroy it is because you may have missed a piece of bread in your house. But even if you burned all your chametz there may be a piece of chametz you missed so you have to abrogate any rights that you have. But if you are mevatel your rights then how come you have to burn it?

Rashi and Tosafot say that because a human being has difficulty rejecting that which belongs to the human being. So you can say from today and from tomorrow, “I give up all my rights to that box of cookies.” But the next day you are a little hungry, you go, “Oh I cannot wait to eat those cookies.” Meaning you did not really give up your rights to those cookies. So therefore you have to do both. You have to cancel your rights and you also have to burn it.