Bedikas Chametz: The Search

There is a Torah obligation to remove chametz before the hour its consumption becomes forbidden. The Sages instituted that on the night of the fourteenth of Nisan the house is searched by candlelight — so that any chametz found can be destroyed before that hour arrives.

Why search a house you have already cleaned

This is the obvious question, and the sources meet it directly.

Even though the whole house has been cleaned before the fourteenth so that not a trace of chametz remains, the Sages nonetheless instituted a search — in the holes and cracks and in every place where chametz is normally brought.

And the instruction is explicit that one may not rely on the general cleaning and disposal already done. The search is a separate obligation, performed again across the whole house in the places chametz is usually taken.

So the weeks of cleaning and the search on the fourteenth are not the same act done twice. The cleaning removes chametz; the search discharges an obligation to look.

Doubt is treated more strictly here

An unusual feature of this area, and it explains a lot of what people find excessive about it.

The search is, at root, about a doubt — you do not know whether there is chametz behind the bookcase. Ordinarily a rabbinic doubt is treated leniently. Here the Sages were stricter with its doubt than with other rabbinic doubts.

The practical consequence: a place where chametz is only sometimes brought still requires searching. "We don't usually eat in there" is not a reason to skip a room.

On the effort

The sources anticipate that a careful search is burdensome and address it rather than ignoring it: even where the search involves considerable trouble, one should not grow weary of it — l'fum tzaara agra, the reward is according to the effort.

That is worth reading as guidance rather than encouragement. The difficulty is expected, not a sign you are doing it wrong.

What this means practically

• Clean first, then search. They are sequential and distinct.
• Search where chametz actually goes — which in a modern house includes bags, coat pockets, car, desk drawers, and anywhere food is carried, not only the kitchen.
• Include the doubtful places. The occasional-use room is precisely the case the stringency was aimed at.
• Do not let cleaning substitute for the search, however thorough it was.

The details of when, how and with what are a matter of your community's practice — ask your rav, and ask before the night rather than during it.

See also chametz in the car and at work, which is the part of the search most often forgotten.