Daf Yomi One Week at a Time: Pesachim

This week we will be finishing Tractate Eruvin. After an introduction to Tractate Pesachim we will learn the first two daf and understand the primary obligation to search for Chametz.

This week we will continue to learn the laws regarding searching one’s home for leavened bread.  How and when is this done? Who needs to check? What blessing is said? And what does a weasel have to do with any of this?

This week we are going to learn the laws of eating leavened bread on the 14th of Nisan, Erev Pesach. What time do we need to stop eating Chametz, and at what time to we burn the chametz? How did the nation know what time it was on the morning of the 14th? We will then enter the complicated world of Purity and Impurity (Tahara and Tumah)

This week will continue discussing the laws of purity and impurity and the difference between the Temple and outside the Temple, and impurity of a Sheretz vs. impurity from a dead body. With that we will conclude the first chapter in Masechet Pesachim. The second chapter begins with a discussion about the prohibition to eat and benefit from Chametz.

This week we will learn if involuntary benefit from a forbidden item is permitted or forbidden, how we are meant to destroy chametz before Pesach, and what we can do to utensils that were used for chametz to make them permissible to use on Pesach.

This week we will learn the consequence of eating Chametz on Pesach that was also Terumah and therefore forbidden to eat (if you aren’t a priest). We will also discuss what grains and what liquids are permissible to make Matzah for Pesach.

This week we will learn about different vegetables that can be used as Marror and if vinegar stops the leavening process or hastens it. We will be finishing the second chapter of Pesachim and begin the third chapter. In this chapter we will learn fundamental concepts that are not only relevant on Pesach but for general dietary laws as well.

This week we will learn about “deaf dough” and if you can separate Challah from your impure matzah dough. We will see how 3 people can make matzah at the same time without the fear that it will leaven. We will complete the third chapter this week and begin the fourth chapter that discusses customs and traditions of different communities on Erev Pesach.