Based on the writings of the holy Nesivos Shalom.
This is an attempt to crystallize down the ideas of the last phone shiur into a printed format – here goes :
Chazal have compared chametz to the yetzer hara. This is because the way that chametz leavens bread is comparable to the stalling and/or inflating actions that are the hallmarks of the evil inclination. Chazal further teach us that when we search out for chametz – we are searching also within ourselves for impure motivations and faulty approaches.
Bearing this in mind, why is chametz only prohibited on Pesach ? I could understand that to live in a perpetual state of elevation would be too much to ask, and consequently, we would eat chametz on regular days. But why allow chametz, that food equivalent of the yetzer hara, on other holy days ? Are we not commanded to purify ourselves before Hashem on those days too ?!
To answer let us backtrack ( sooo Jewish ). There is a concept called "אחיזת חיצונים" or "tainted by foreign influences". This means that even when we are doing something good – it sometimes carries the possibility of having an aspect that is no good. One of the classic situations where this comes up is eating. While we do eat for a mitzvah quite frequently – there is an aspect to eating which is all about taava or desire. This is actually what the complainers in the desert wanted when they claimed that Hashem should provide them with meat. They were called the desire'ers – because that's what they were missing – desire. The mann since it was wholly spiritual food did not carry with it this negative aspect of desire – and it's precisely this aspect that the complainers were missing.
Pesach is a holiday of skips and jumps. The very name Passover means that Hashem skipped the houses of the Jews when He plagued Egypt.
As opposed to a gradual ascent – skipping, or jumping, is characteristic of a sudden, intense elevation. This is what Pesach is. It is not a Shavuous where we have 49 days to prepare for the receipt of the Torah. It is not a Succos, where we are celebrating an action that took place constantly for 40 years. It is a bright flash of divine intervention – a sudden, strong handed, redemption that plucked us out of the levels of tumah that we were in.
Certain types of observances more readily lend themselves to protection from harmful, impure motivations – holidays that have built-in preparation periods, for example. On Rosh Hashanna, we would not be commanded to refrain from chametz – because it comes after an intense Elul. But for a holiday like Pesach, which is all the more susceptible to the harmful outer influences – we must protect ourselves – we must avoid these nuances in our motivations at all costs. That's why we eat food that was prepared in the blink of an eye – to commemorate a miracle that was done in the blink of an eye – to avoid anything impure slipping into our mitzvah while our eyes were blinking.
Wishing you all a Pesach with "pure" intentions !
Rabbi Druyan
