These notes are intended solely to aid in the learning process and should not be considered authoritative halachic conclusions
Please do not rely on these notes l’maaseh
דChelek 4
- The search must be conducted by single-wick wax candle light. (ShA , )
- If you did not search at night, bedieved you should conduct the search as early as possible in the morning of the 14th of Nissan. Do not eat until it is done. Use a wax candle to search for chometz in the morning. Indoor places flooded with daylight can be searched without a candle. (ShA — MB , , , )
- Search even places that are not used for chometz but could have had chometz in them by chance. (ShA — MB )
- A house with children needs to be searched for chometz even in places that adults normally would not use for chometz. (MB )
- A yard does not have to be searched since the local birds would have eaten any chometz. (ShA )
- Shuls need to be searched for chometz. The shamash must be told to do the search with a beracha on the night of the 14th and not to wait until the day. No bittul is declared after such a search. (ShA — MB )
- If while cleaning your house on the day before bedikas chometz you have intention to destroy any chometz found, you nevertheless need to search that night as normal. If you cleaned all but one room by the night before the 14th, you only have to do bedikas chometz on that one room. (ShA — MB — ShaH56)
- The custom is to sweep up and organise the rooms that will be searched on the day of the 13th of Nissan so that the search can commence efficiently at nightfall. (MB )
- Clothes pockets — whether yours or your children’s — which are sometimes used for chometz, must be searched during bedikas chometz. You must shake the pockets out again when burning the chometz lest you inadvertently put some back into them after the bedika. (Rama — MB , )