I usually you hear the topic before, then I repeat it. This time, I'm going to contradict a little bit of what we just heard. I was thinking maybe I will give a little introduction, or say just a few words about Pesach, and then I was thinking maybe which topics to cover I will leave to the audience. If you have any questions, maybe you mention it, and then I'll discuss that. So, instead of leaving the questions to the end, then I will just give like a presentation of different things. If you have questions I will just give a little presentation on the general idea of Pesach, and what this is all about. And then to hear what is important, and what people want to know. So, I'll just start with the the fact that we know that on Pesach, chametz is forbidden. Basically, chametz on Pesach is like non-kosher food the whole year. But it's not just like non-kosher food. It has certain chumrot we call it, it's more strict than non-kosher food during the year. It's more strict than chazir, pig, during the year that we get scared we just hear the word pig to eat pork, you know, you get scared. Chametz on Pesach is worse than that, and I'll explain why. Because to eat chametz on Pesach, the punishment in the Torah is karet. That means like this, in order to judge how strict a mitzvah is, or an aveirah is, doing something wrong is, we judge it by what the punishment the Torah gives for it. And even though in many cases we don't have that punishment nowadays because that only used to be when we had a בית המקדש, and they used to have this beit din, the Sanhedrin and the beit din, and they used to be able to give all these punishments. And nowadays doesn't apply. But we're not talking about whether the get one gets, God forbid, the punishment or not, we're talking about the proof, the fact that there is a certain level of punishment that proves of how, what level that aveirah or that mitzvah is. Now, most food that's forbidden is under the category of a lav. A lav means there's a negative commandment in the Torah that says don't eat this. And the punishment for transgressing a negative commandment is malkot. That would be the 39 lashes as prescribed in the Torah. Then there are certain things, not too many, which are worse than that and the punishment for that is karet. Karet means the Torah says a person would die a premature death and all kinds of other spiritual things that apply that go together with karet. And that is for not too many things, like eating on Yom Kippur, which we know eating on Yom Kippur is terrible. So, eating on Yom Kippur, the punishment would be karet. Similarly to that eating chametz on Pesach, the punishment is karet. And therefore, chametz on Pesach is one of the strictest types of non-kosher food that exist in the Torah, in our Jewish life, that's eating chametz on Pesach. Besides that, chametz has another aspect to it that we do not find concerning any other forbidden food, not even by the forbidden types of food that And that is that chametz on Pesach, besides being what we call אסור באכילה that you can't eat it, besides being אסור בהנאה, means you can't have any pleasure from it. That means you can't have any benefit from chametz on Pesach, but that still applies to other type of forbidden foods. For instance, milk and meat that's cooked together is forbidden not only to be eaten, but it's also אסור בהנאה. It's also forbidden to make any have any benefit from it. But there is something more in chametz and that is בל יראה ובל ימצא. בל יראה ובל ימצא means that you can't even own chametz on Pesach. A person is not allowed to own. A person owns chametz on Pesach, he transgresses two negative commandments, two. The Torah says לא יראה לך חמץ and it says לא ימצא. It says that shall not be seen, it shall not be found. And like everything else in תורה שבעל פה in the Oral Torah, it's discusses exactly what the פסוק what the Torah means. So, here too, after learning everything in the Talmud, in the Gemara, we learn out it means that a person is not allowed to own chametz on Pesach. Now, own chametz on Pesach does not mean only if it's in his house. It could be someplace else. If the chametz belongs to him, and he didn't do anything before Pesach to get rid of the chametz, then this is a lav, two lavin, two negative commandments which is בל יראה and בל ימצא. So, this is another thing that we have chametz, which is more strict than anything else. Then there's a third thing, I'm just going to mention the general ideas, a third thing in chametz on Pesach. And that is that other issurim, other prohibited foods, there is a concept which is called בטל בששים. בטל בששים means that if non-kosher food falls into kosher food, it gets mixed in together, it is nullified if there are 60 times as much in the kosher against the non-kosher. So let's just give an example, if let's say 1 oz of non-kosher oil fell in to a big, big pot of kosher oil, if there are 59 oz in that big pot, and this is 1 oz, it's still forbidden. What will happen is that now this whole pot is forbidden because it it is all non-kosher. If the same thing happened that this 1 oz fell into a pot of 60 oz, so there are 60 times as much in the kosher against the non-kosher, then it is nullified and you're allowed to eat it. If you recognize the forbidden food, you must take it out, there's no question about it. But if it's not recognizable, like the liquid that got mixed in or other things similar to that, it becomes nullified one in 60. While chametz on Pesach does not become nullified one in 60, it doesn't become nullified one in 100, and it doesn't become nullified one in 1,000 or one in 10,000. That means that if a drop of chametz would get mixed into a big, big pot of kosher Passover food, Pesachdike food which is not chametz, any food, whether it's matzah or it's potatoes or it's soup or whatever it is, even if there are 150 times in the kosher food, in the Pesachdike food against the non-kosher, the chametzdike food, it is all forbidden. And for this reason, when it comes to Pesach, we all get very, very nervous and we all make sure that we should do everything possible that the Pesach should be in a proper way. So always mention this vort that the story with the Mezeritcher Maggid and the the vort, the point that he made was that we all know that before Pesach when we meet and we greet each other, what do we say? We should have a kosher un freilichen Pesach. A kosher un freilichen Pesach, kosher and happy Passover. That's what we say. And he asked, doesn't understand, if you want to wish a person to have a happy time, that then there's what to wish, because it's not in his hands. Maybe something will happen, he won't be happy. So you wish, Hashem should help you that you should have a happy time. But what is the meaning you wish a person, you should have a כשר פסח? If you make it kosher, it'll be kosher. You ever see someone wish somebody else, you should Hashem should help you, you should have kosher meat? If you'll buy kosher meat, you'll have kosher meat. Say Hashem should help you to have a kosher meal, it's nothing to help. It's up to you, if you have kosher dishes, if you go buy kosher meat, and you have kosher dishes, and you don't mix milk and meat, you'll have a kosher. You don't wish anybody. But why do we wish you should have a כשר פסח? And the answer is very simple, because it is very, very hard to make sure that the food that we eat and the Pesach in general is 100% kosher, because since it is so strict, and it is not batel b'shishim, it doesn't get so we never know if a drop get mixed in. See, during the year, if something that might who knows, maybe a touch non-kosher food, maybe something happened, so the worst that happened, if it did happen, usually it would be so little, if you don't know about it, it's so little that it would become batel, become nullified. But on Pesach, because it doesn't become nullified, so we're scared, so we don't know. So as much as we do, we still have to rely on Hashem, and Hashem should help us that it should be that way. So we have to do our best as much as possible, and then Hashem will help us to make sure that if we do our best, that nothing, God forbid, that's forbidden should happen. And we, let me just finish this thing. There there is a statement of the Arizal that he writes in Kitvei HaArizal he says, and the Arizal was the foremost authority in Kabbalah and in halacha, so he says that any person that is careful for Pesach not to come in contact with even a משהו חמץ, with a drop of chametz, he says he's guaranteed that throughout the year he is not going to sin. And the Rebbe explains, now what do you mean he's not going to sin? Every person has free choice, how could you do something that will guarantee you won't sin? So he says, it doesn't mean b'mezid, intentionally. But there are sometimes a person by mistake does something wrong, but if you are careful on Pesach not to have a contact with a drop of chametz at all, you are guaranteed that you will not make any mistakes of doing something wrong throughout the year. And that's why when it comes to Pesach we do everything possible and think things that when the same thing would have been by other questions of kashrut, we would not have done it. And sometimes it even says a person shouldn't go overboard in going, let's use the real word, going crazy in doing things when it comes to kashrut. Sometimes the Shulchan Aruch it says, don't do that. You make yourself look like you're a big tzaddik and you're doing too much, and it's wrong to do it. Comes to Pesach, it says, everything works. Everything goes. Any meshuga'at that you have to make sure that you don't have a contact with chametz is okay. That's why there were different communities that had all kinds of customs of doing things which basically almost have no source in halacha why not to why to do it or not to do it, but because of this, of that, once this happened, this and that, they stopped doing it. It says it's okay, and we do it. And there are different customs. There are the basic halachot of chametz, what we're allowed of, what we're not allowed, and then there are, on top of that, different customs that different communities have. And this is these are the things that we're going to discuss. Now, I'm just bringing out a few points what we should discuss, and you'll tell me if this is what you want to discuss. One of the things is, being that when it comes to Pesach, the food that we eat throughout the year is basically treif, non-kosher, on Pesach since chametz is forbidden, and all the dishes that we use throughout the year, which were cooked with chametz, we cook we bake bread and we bake challah, and we bake kneidlach which were made with chametz, and we have everything is chametz. Noodles, our whole kitchen is chametzdik, cake, which is right there, which we should eat because we should get rid of it before Pesach. So all this that we do is, yeah, mashkeh is chametz. Liquor is is pure chametz. Liquor is as chametz as bread. What about brandy? Oh, I don't know the specifics of it, but Yeah, it's maybe it has a little bit of of of mashkeh in it. I don't know, but mashkeh, which means whiskey or vodka, is pure chametz. So all that, so our whole kitchen and all our dishes are chametzdik, which means that when it comes to Pesach, we don't want to use these words, but for Pesach it's like it's treif. We are not allowed to use non-kosher dishes to cook kosher food, and the reason is very simple, because when you cook non-kosher food in a dish, or even it wasn't cooked in it, but you put non-kosher food in a dish, the nature is, and that's what the halacha says, that the dish absorbs some of the taste of that food. So if it was non-kosher food, the non-kosher food was absorbed in the walls of the dish. Now you're going to use it for kosher food, when you cook food in a dish, what happens is the taste of the food that you're cooking now, some of it goes into the walls, but some of the taste that's in the walls of the fo- of the dish comes out into the food. That's what the nature is. And therefore, when you're going to cook kosher food in a non-kosher dish, it'll make the food that you cook non-kosher, because it'll absorb the taste. Now somebody might be thinking, but won't that be בטל בששים during the year? Won't the taste of the non-kosher food that's in the walls of the dish be nullified in the food itself? Well, the truth is, it is not not so. The area within a pot is not 60 times the size of the walls. The volume inside. It is usually about 30 times as much. I don't know, I didn't work on it mathematically, but that's what it says in Shulchan Aruch. And therefore would not become בטל בששים. So therefore we cannot use even throughout the year non-kosher dishes. Pesach we can't do that either, use it either. And therefore, when it comes to Pesach, we have to make sure that we have different dishes, because we have to have dishes that were never used for chametz. Or, certainly in the olden days when people couldn't afford to have new dishes or dish, not I don't mean plates, but even pots and things like that, you were able to kasher it. Just like when a pot becomes treif, you're able to kasher it, you're able to kasher some things, which are those that you could, in certain forms, and they become kasher for Pesach and then you could use it for Pesach. This is one area which I suggest we discuss if that's what you want to discuss. Then there are other areas of how to prepare the kitchen, and which foods you could buy, which foods you can't. That is another area. So which area would you like to discuss? Should we start with the kashering or Okay. Just the kashering.

The truth is, in most most people in our situation don't really come to kasher things, but that's not so, because there are parts of the kitchen that we do kasher. Even if you have a full set of Pesachdike dishes, which all of us now Baruch Hashem could afford it, and we do it. But let's just go go through first the general laws of kashering, how you kasher, and which things can be kashert. And the law is like this: there are basic two forms of kashering, which apply to different things. And the title, the name for these two things is hagalah and libun. Hagalah is when you kasher something with hot water. Libun is when you kasher something with fire. Certain things you could kasher by dipping it into boiling water. Certain things you cannot kasher that way, and the only way to kasher it is if you burn it, and you'll have to use a torch to do it. The rule is כבולעו כך פולטו, which means the same way the pot absorbed the non-kosher taste, or in our case the chametz taste, the same way you have to get it out. And therefore, any pot that absorbed it through liquid—first of all, it only absorbs through heat. When you put something cold on a dish, it does not absorb, unless it was soaking for more than 24 hours. If you have something in a in a bottle for 24 hours, and even if it was cold, the walls of that bottle will absorb it. But otherwise, it only absorbs through heat. Now, some things absorb through liquid. For instance, a normal pot in which you cooked noodles in. Now that pot is chametzdig, because noodles is pure chametz. What's chametz? Chametz is flour and water that you let it stay, it rises. That's what noodles are. So, if you cook noodles in a pot, that pot is chametzdig. But how did it absorb the chametz? Through liquid, because you only cook with water, with liquid. So, it absorbed through hot liquid. So, the way to kasher such a pot is through hot water. I'm just saying in general, then I'm going to go more detail. Those things, those dish utensils that absorbed chametz without liquid, the only way to kasher it is through fire. For instance, a cookie sheet that you put cookies on. I don't encourage anybody to kasher a cookie sheet and use it for Pesach, but I'm just using it as an extreme example, because that is something that's real chametz, and you put it on you put it into the oven, it's not with liquid, and because it absorbed it through heat, you have to kasher it with heat itself. So therefore, let's use an example of a pot that you used, a regular chametzdike pot, which to assume you cooked lokshen in it, you cooked noodles in it. Since you cooked noodles in it on the fire, so the way to kasher it is, you would have to, let's use let's say it was a small pot, you would have to boil up a pot of water on the fire, and take that chametzdike utensil, make sure first of all that it's clean. If a pot or any utensil is not clean, you can't kasher it. It has to be purely clean. Then if it has any rust on it, you got to get rid of the rust. If it has rust on it, you can't kasher it. If it's clean and it's not rusty, stains don't matter. Sometimes you have these stains that you can't rub off. But if it's rust, it's no good, or any dirt, it's no good. But if it's clean, you would dip it in completely. Huh? You have to first wait for 24 hours since it was last used for chametz. Then you take this utensil, you would dip it into boiling water. You would use a Pesach pot to boil up the water. You would dip it in just for a second. It doesn't have to be long. As a matter of fact, it says it shouldn't stay long. You dip it in, and you take it out. So sometimes if it's something you have to make sure you have a plier or something to take it out. Or if it's silverware, you would put it into a net and dip it in and then take it out, and then rinse it off with cold water. So here we are kashering this pot the same way the pot became chametzdik. But this is a chametzdike pot that became chametzdik, we call it a כלי ראשון על האש. כלי ראשון means we have levels in vessels. The pot that's cooked on the fire is called כלי ראשון, that's the first. When you take from this pot, let's say, and you pour out from a pot onto into another pot, when it comes into the second pot, that's already called a כלי שני. The truth is there is even a level in between, two levels in between, if you want to get into the details. One level is a כלי ראשון, which is the first one, but not on the fire. Let's say you had a pot, clean pot, wasn't used for chametz yet. You boiled up water, and it's boiling. You took it off the fire, and you threw a piece of cake in it. Now it became chametzdik. And it became chametzdik through a כלי ראשון, because it's still the first pot, it wasn't poured over, but it's not the כלי ראשון standing on the fire. So you have a level of a כלי ראשון standing on the fire. That's that's if it's standing on the fire and cooking with the noodles. But if the noodles didn't get into it till it went off, so it's still a כלי ראשון. Then you have another level, when you pour from that כלי, that first כלי, into another one, that flow is called an עירוי כלי ראשון. That's called a pouring of a כלי ראשון. So when you pour from that into the second pot, the liquid, which is chametzdik, which will touch that second pot, is chametzdik through a level of עירוי כלי ראשון, of a pouring a כלי ראשון. Now, when it came into that second pot, that's called a כלי שני. Now let's say you have the water, clean water, not chametzdik, in a Pesachdike pot that was cooked on the on You didn't put any chametz in, you poured it over into another pot. Now you put some chametz into that pot. So this כלי absorbed chametz in a כלי שני. Let's say if a piece of bread was laying in a כלי, and you took a a kettle of water and poured into the pot where the chametz was there, that vessel absorbed it not in a כלי שני. It absorbed in עירוי כלי ראשון. It absorbed it when there was still the flow from the first כלי. And therefore, and the same thing could be a כלי שני pouring into third, and then you have a third. Further it doesn't go. A fourth, a fifth, a sixth are all the same. So therefore when it comes to kasher, the same way it became chametzdik, you could kasher the same way you make it to make it Pesachdik. And therefore, if a pot which is used on the fire, and it could be with chametz, used with chametz on the fire, the way to kasher it is through water that's on the fire. If you have, let's say, a plate Now a plate, if it's earthenware, earthenware you cannot kasher. But let's say glass we don't kasher for Pesach either, but let's say it's a metal plate, and you poured over into that plate, and that's how that plate became chametzdik. To kasher it, you could kasher it the same way that it became chametzdik. You could boil up hot water and pour this clean Pesachdike hot water over this plate, so you will be kashering it with an עירוי כלי ראשון, because it absorbed through the pouring of a כלי ראשון. Let's say it's a pot a plate that only became chametzdik through a כלי שני. In other words, you never poured chametz on it, but after you had hot water in it, you put some chametz in it. So now you could kasher it truthfully in a כלי שני. So basically this is all concerning keilim, utensils, that absorb chametz through liquid. So you could kasher it this way, or by immersing it into the hot water, or in the certain case of pouring. Or there's another way: if you have a big pot, you can't immerse it in anything, so you fill up that pot itself, the chametzdike pot, you fill it up with water, boil it up, fill it up till the top, boil it up, it starts boiling and it has to bubble. Now what happens when it starts boiling, the rim on top will not have water. So the what to do is you take a rock, stone, and you throw it in, so it'll overflow. The problem is when you throw in that rock, it's going to cool off the water. So the water that's now going to run over is not going to be the same heat as you want. So what you do is you heat up a rock, and you throw in a hot rock, so it doesn't cool off the water, and it'll overflow as hot, and then you could kasher it that way. Then there are certain things that you can't kasher with water, like I said those things that absorb through heat itself. The only way to kasher that is through libun. Libun means with a fire going through with a torch, burning it, and every spot of that utensil has to be burned. And the way to do it is that you have to hold the torch there till it gets red hot. Now certain materials, especially nowadays, would not get red hot, but you hold it long enough that according to the cheshbon normally, if it would be regular metal, it would have gotten red hot. And then you could continue to the next piece, which is a very tedious, very hard job to do, therefore it's not advisable. Now, this would apply, according to our opinion, is to an oven. Yes, you were going to ask something? Yeah. It has to be the stricter one. If you See, the burning it is the stricter level. Any pot that absorbed through a lower level or a stricter level has to be kashered to the stricter, like if you have used a כלי, utensil, for both cooking and baking, then it has to be kashered with fire. Self-cleaning is like a fire. Self-cleaning goes up to 900°, and that's like a fire, yes. There's one more thing that even though it seems like it's used with liquid, the din is that you have to kasher it with fire, and that is a frying pan. Because since a frying pan you use only a little bit of liquid, not like a cooking a soup, but you a little bit of liquid, there are many times that it burns out the liquid and it stays without liquid. Usually the women who cook, who fry, oh they look, oh it needs more oil, you pour in more oil, but sometimes you miss, so it's possible and that many times it happens that it absorbs without liquid, and therefore you have to kasher it with fire, which usually doesn't work. I'm going to get to that. So when I'm talking about the burning an oven would be something like that. The oven, the way the oven absorbs chametz is through heat, and you would have to kasher it with a torch. That's why it's not advisable, because it's very hard to kasher with a torch. The way to do it would be to first heat it up all the way so it gets hot and makes it much faster to do, and then you would put on gloves and put a torch in and go through every piece, and it's very hard, so it's not advisable to do. Now, a self-cleaning oven, you don't A self-cleaning oven, like I said, is like with heat, it's like fire, and therefore you put it on, let it go through the cycle, and it should go through The time limit should be more than you think you ever used it for chametz. The only problem is that there are certain parts in it that the self-cleaning, the heat does not get there, and that's by the borders and where the door meets the oven. So what you have to do there is you have to cover it with silver foil. Also, there's a problem with the glass that they have that the ovens have a glass, so the right way to do it is to open the door, after you finish self-cleaning it, you open the door, you put silver foil, a few layers of thick silver foil around the door, covering all the sides and the corners, and taking it out, which will cover the glass, which will cover all the corners, and then together with the self-cleaning, that's okay, you could do that. You said to do it longer than you've done it for, so It's a good question. This is not really a must. This is the right way to do it, but in a case like this, you just leave it on to the most that it could go, most it could go. The temperature is higher though. But it's still heat, but it's still heat. Right, right, no, that was a very good question. Now, does it really need to be 24 hours before? No. You only need 24 hours to wait if it's going to be kashered with liquid, with water. Yeah, but if it's going to be kashered with heat, with fire, then you don't have to.

I just want to mention before I get to the sink that certain things that you cannot kasher, that it's hard What do you mean you cannot? It's hard to kasher with water, there is a substitute to kashering with hot water, and that is called a libun kal. That is also using fire, but you don't have to wait till it gets so hot that it would be red hot, but hot enough that if you would touch a tissue to it, the tissue would get brown. And that's not long. Most cases, that's not long, and you could do that. And therefore, if you have, let's say, a utensil that has a certain rusty space and you can't get rid of the rust, so you can't kasher it. So what you do is that little space of the rust, you do the libun, and then you could kasher it, because that part is kashered already, then you could kasher. Another place where we do hagala, even though, like I said, most cases we don't kasher dishes, I mean plates or pots, because we all have Pesachdike, special kelim, but that is the sink that some people use it, use hagala, and the counters. See, the counters, because you put hot stuff on the counters, the counters are חמץ'דיק. So there is a big problem: how do you kasher the counters? So one of the ways to do is not to kasher it, but to cover it, and that's what many people do, cover it. We buy these pieces of Formica, or we buy thick pieces of plastic, and you cover the counters. But basically, you could kasher it, depending what it is. If the counter is originally Formica, we don't kasher plastic for Pesach. As during the year, if a piece of plastic or a Formica counter becomes treif Some reason spills, something spill on it, milk and meat spilled on it for some reason, we could kasher it. We do kasher plastic. For Pesach we don't, just like we don't kasher glass. So if you have a Formica counter you can't kasher it for Pesach. So then there is no choice, but let's say you have made of stone, made of of of metal, aluminium, granite, so you could kasher it. So what do you do? So kasher means you pour hot water. Now the question will be will pouring hot water over the counter be enough? Now according to what I said before, why not? How did it ever become חמצדיק? By some חמצדיק food falling on it. So at worst it was an עירוי כלי ראשון, it came as pouring out מכלי ראשון. You never took the counter and put it on the fire. So it's from a keli, at worst from a level of כלי ראשון might have poured out on the counter and made the counter חמצדיק. So then why shouldn't just taking hot water from the כלי ראשון, pouring it on the counter, and my counter will be kasher'd? The answer is that not always when something comes out of a כלי ראשון does it lose the status of a כלי ראשון of a first. A דבר גוש, if it's a solid, if it comes out of a כלי ראשון still keeps its status as a כלי ראשון. And therefore, using the example, if a if you were baking, and you took out the pan, and from the pan a cookie while fell off and fell on the counter, this is not called an עירוי כלי ראשון, a pouring, this is called a כלי ראשון itself. And therefore you would have to kasher it through a כלי ראשון, which means the first level of a keli like from the fire. Now how could you get the counter to become a כלי ראשון? The counter is here, the only way you could do is pour hot water. So the way to do it is you would heat up an iron and pour and heat up a pot of water or a kettle of water, pour, bit by, piece by piece, but pour a little bit. Now at the moment you poured it, it lost its level of כלי ראשון, but then the moment you pour it, go over it with the iron. The iron will make the heat come back, and it'll start bubbling again, it'll turn back into כלי ראשון. On the bottom of the sink, the surface, the flat surface, there's no problem. You do the same thing as we spoke about the counter. You take hot water, you go over with the iron, you could do it. What about the walls of the sink? The walls of the sink you can't do it, because the moment you pour the water, it falls down. There is no way that you could pour the water and go with the iron. So how are you going to kasher the sides of the sink? So the sides of the sink you're going to kasher, like I said before, there is a substitute to this hagala, which is a libun kal. You would have to take a torch and go through, not all the way to make it red hot, but you would have to go through slowly, so those parts would get burned. Now they say that if you do that, the back of the sink, well the the the cement might start cracking, and also if you go too long, it'll you might ruin the sink. So therefore, the easiest way to do it is, first of all, to pour hot water over it, just let it be, but that you don't really have to if you're going to cover it, and put in the insert, and you put, if you put in an insert, really you don't even have to kasher it, because it's like a new keli, as long as everything is covered. So really we don't have to kasher. We would do it anyway, like we said before, we do משוגעתן, there's there's no reason, but you know we do this, and like my mother used to say, in our house many of us didn't eat sugar Pesach, no sugar on Pesach. And then, but some people would take the sugar and boil it and sift it before Pesach. So in our house what we used to do, we used to buy special Pesachdik sugar, and then cook it up and sift it, and then no one ate it. So we did everything. So, you know, because it so here you do the same thing, we kasher it and we do this, but really you don't have to. But therefore, if you wait, it's good, but you don't really have to in this case because the kashering is just extra, so you just pour hot water, and the main thing is to have it covered. Now the the the insert that you put in covers the whole sink, you have to get the size that should cover the whole sink. Now what about the sides? So the sides, if it's the counter that you're going to put some Formica or whatever it is, you make sure that it covers, that it there is no gap in between. But it's kedai also that to put silver foil that should come out of the cover, out of the sink, under that that insert and it should go under there, just in case there is a space and there is that it shouldn't That's the that's the flat surface, but there's also a little problem with the walls. Because when you put down chometzdik dishes, many times, you know, things touch the walls, and you never know, you might touch the wall now again. So therefore, the right thing to do, and that's what we all do, is we cover the walls around the counters where things which are hot might come into contact, you cover it with silver paper, so just in case it touches, so it doesn't really matter. And the same thing is with the stove. The stove, besides the stove itself, which is a problem and we have to know how to kasher it, or if you have let's say a new part that you cover up for Pesach, you put for Pesach, the back, the walls of the stove, and that's worse than the counters. The counters really it's not that, doesn't really get that hot, but the stove, there is really steam that comes, and the steam touches the wall, goes onto the walls. And also the same thing with the top, what's it called, the the hood. The steam comes from the chometzdike food and goes onto the hood, and then Pesach it will come and, you know, it could drip down, I mean, so you cover it with silver foil. Now, maybe the little place where that actually has to go out, if it's needed, you could leave it a little bit open, 'cause one little piece won't make that big difference, but generally speaking, you cover the hood, and you cover the the walls of the around the counters and around the stove, and also if the counter has on top, also has like a little ceiling, so over the stove you have to, over here, it's not really needed, but many people do that too, and they cover that too to make sure that just in case it touches, you know, just in It's like I I always tell this once, we have a minhag that we cover the matzah during Pesach. We never have matzah open, because since we are so careful with gebrokts not to have matzah come in contact with water, that we always keep it covered that nothing should spill. So I remember someone once came into my house, and he said, he saw the matzot covered, said, \"Why are you covering the matzah?\" So he said they might get wet. He says, \"How how could it get wet?\" He said, \"You never know, might be a hole in the ceiling, it might rain, and might come straight down. I mean, you never know what could happen. So it might come straight on the matzah.\" So, we do everything to be extra, extra careful. Yes. Let me tell you, huh? You walk in a Pesachdike kitchen, it looks like silver, it's all over silver. Spaceship. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. It's so far-fetched, but I'll tell you what what what is far-fetched. If ever chametz touch that wall, and it was hot, so that wall absorbed the taste of chametz, because when hot food touches anything, and it gets absorbed. Now, your Pesachdike food might touch it, that same spot, and if it does, it absorbs, because if it's hot, it absorbs again. They covered it with paper. Newspapers. Yeah, they used to they used to collect newspapers to use for this, yeah, that's what they did. Or they had or paper. They would put shmates. Yeah, that's exactly what they used to do. They used to put cloth or shmates, and yeah. Or they would metal, pieces of wood, yeah, they would they would do things like that, they would, yeah. Okay, I'm I'm going to There are still parts in the sink that we have a problem with, because you put in the insert and then you have the faucet, and then you have the handles, the the, what's it called, the the spigots. The the No, the faucet and then you have the the handles, yeah. So, what you have to do is, is cover it with tin foil. Cover the You should try to kasher the faucet, at least to pour hot water over it, and the part that is on the end where the water comes through, usually you could take off the part, and you could put a new part, so you should buy a new sifter, whatever it's called. A hot nail? In my my faucet in my house is such a way that you could pull it out, so I have a pot of water and I stick that into the pot of water, but usually you can't, so at least to pour some throw some water up there to kasher it, but to buy a new sifter, whatever it's called, if you can't get a new one, it's kedai to have, okay, maybe even a cloth over it, that when the water comes, at least it should be sifted during while it's coming out. I always say this is a very hard thing, that you should not use hot water throughout the whole Pesach for dishes and for for cooking. I mean, for the shower you could use hot water, but not for Why? Because we always suspect that you never know, maybe while you are washing your dishes with hot water, somebody else in another apartment is using the same hot is using hot water from the faucet to chametz. Now, being that the way it's set up that the water flow is all connected, so if they're using their flow of water and you're you're using your flow of water, it's all connected. And since the water that's connected to the chametz that let's say he's that person is washing noodles, so the water that's coming down absorbs and it since it's all one connected and it's not בטל בששים, so you can have 1,000 times as much it doesn't matter, so the water that you're using is a problem. Therefore, in the case like that where there is one boiler, see, if you have different boilers for different that is no problem. But if it's one boiler, which many times you have big boilers in it, so then there is a big problem. So then you shouldn't use the hot water. At least not hot over the level of יד סולדת which is about 110°. Yeah. Oh, it's connected. If it's touching That's not for that. That's for preventing That's not going to help that. No, this is just in case there is something in the water to get caught. So, if you have the regular thing, it's a chometzdik sieve. But if you have don't have so you should buy a a Pesachdik. If you don't have that, let it be some other sieve. But that's for a different reason, that just the water that comes through should not have if there is a piece of anything there to get stuck. That that won't prevent this. This is This is no Not a problem, right. You don't use hot water, meaning hotter than 110°. At least the mamash won't be there. The bli'ah is one thing and the mamash is another, at least you won't have a mamash. Like this is only bli'ah of of of a mashehu. If you take that piece, the strainer, and you do hag'alah on it That's good. If it's practical to clean it, that the strainers are so so tedious, hard to get If you could clean it, then it's good, yeah, yeah. Yeah, someone You were going to ask? I'd rather. No. He's hot, mine is cold, no No, but the cold does not absorb. Yes, the water that you have doesn't absorb, and even if it did, it will not go into the food. If you are washing some food, you're washing vegetables with that cold water, even if that water is chometzdik, it will not No, if side is different pipes, but even if the water is chometzdik, your your food will not absorb it because food only absorbs through heat. When I'm doing hag'alah, so I I'm putting all Silver? Yes. Well, stainless steel you have If the handle is part of it, you can't kasher it. Let's say if you have a spoon that has a plastic handle, a metal spoon with a plastic handle, you can't kasher it. Even if has a wooden handle, which wood you could kasher for Pesach, but because it has a handle and it's two parts, there's always a little crack in between the the part itself, you can't kasher it. Knives, normal knives with wooden handles you cannot kasher for Pesach for that reason. So, these things you can't kasher. Even though wood normally you could kasher, it's not plastic, but we don't. We can't. That's for Pesach, or? Just for No, no. This you can't forever, for no time. You cannot kasher knives, unless it's a steak knife that it's all one piece. But if a knife with the handle of wood Plastic you could kasher. You could kasher it for throughout the year, but not for Pesach. I'll still tell you. Glass Glass Let me explain. That's right.

Glass, there are three opinions concerning glass. The funny thing, there's one opinion that glass does not absorb and therefore you could use the same glass for fleishik, the same glass for milchik, and you could use it for chametz, and you could use it for Pesach, it doesn't absorb. There's one opinion the opposite, that not only does glass absorb, it absorbs so strongly that you can't even kasher it, ever. You can't kasher glass. Glass becomes treif and you can't kasher it, like חרס, yeah, like earthenware. Then there is a third opinion that glass is like like anything, it absorbs and you could kasher it. Now, those that hold that glass doesn't absorb, it's no problem. The some of ספרדישע מנהג is that glass they have one set of glass for fleishiks and milchiks and no problem you could It doesn't absorb. We pasken, meaning the most Ashkenazim pasken that you could kasher glass, it absorbs and you could kasher it, but that's only throughout the year. Comes for Pesach, the Rema says we're machmir for Pesach, it's good you're machmir not to kasher glass for Pesach. We should, since Pesach we have to try to be strict, we should be stricter like that opinion, like the opinion that holds that you can never kasher glass. So, that's why for Pesach we do that. I always tell again the story of the Alter Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe was by the Seder of the Mezritcher Maggid, but he was so poor that he couldn't afford to buy a new glass for Pesach for his ארבע כוסות. So what did he do? He relied on the opinion that you could kasher glass. Not like the Rema, the Rema is the, by the Ashkenazim the Rema is the top posek. You have the Beit Yosef who is the, by the Sefardim the top, and by the Ashkenazim is the Rema. And the Rema says not to do it, but this time he had no choice, so he relied on the Rema, on the, on this, he didn't follow the Rema. Came to the seder, the Mezritcher Maggid was going to start the seder, and the Alter Rebbe was the youngest תלמיד, so he sat all the way at the end, and the Maggid didn't want to start the seder. And he called over, I think ר' Mendele Haradaker who was the oldest תלמיד, and he says to him, go around, there is some problem with some level of chametz here in the house, go around and find out. So he went from תלמיד to תלמיד, smelling, I mean, he could smell, and finally, nothing, finally he came to the Alter Rebbe, so here we got the guy. Smelled, the Maggid called him over and he said, tell me what happened. So he told him that I for Pesach, even though we don't kasher glass, I kasher'd my glass, and the glass is standing there for the ארבע כוסות. So I kasher'd my glass and I relied on that opinion. So the Maggid says to him, now I understand what the problem was, why I didn't start the seder. The Rema was standing next to me and was telling me somebody here did not listen to me. So the אלטער, so the Maggid said to him, put away your glass, come sit next to me. He gave him one of his own bechers, and he used that. So Beit Yosef, you don't, you could kasher. Some even say that you don't even have to kasher, but at least you could kasher glass, those that don't follow, in other words this is only for Ashkenazim because of the Rema. But Okay, if I have an oven, that's electric oven now that you put a pot Electric, self-cleaning? No, no, no. The top, the stove. The top, the the stove? Yes. Yeah. How can we do that? What To kasher the stove, it's very What you do, look at this. Is it electric? The coils? Yes, everything The coils, electric coils. Electric coils, what you do is, for the coils themselves, you put it on till it gets red hot. That's, that's self-kasher'able, that's nothing. The problem is the parts between the coils, between. So there you would have to kasher it by pouring hot water over it and going through with the iron, or having it covered. So there are pieces you could buy, pieces of like, what do they call them, like trays that you put down on those areas, trays without walls, just flat trays that you put down that just in case you ever have to put down a pot, you put it on that, that you could do. Or you put a whole blech on the thing, but that's very inconvenient. Glass top stoves can you do? Glass top stoves are a big problem, and that's why we never advise people, the glass top stoves, we never advise people to buy those ovens, those stoves. Why? Because it's very hard to kasher. Not only for Pesach, let's say it gets treif, what do you do? The only way to kasher it is to put a blech on and put on the heat and let it all of it get very hot and it'll, they say it gets cracks, it'll crack, it'll this, it's not, it's not, it's a very hard thing. Huh? I started a fire one year that way. Oh, okay, good! Here we have personal experience. Not for Pesach, just putting a glass on the, the surface. Also not, also not, also not. Because this is, it's so, it absorbs it through heat and you have to kasher it through heat, and it's very hard to kasher it through heat, so it's not a good idea at all. Yes? Very, it's very hard to do, I wouldn't advise anybody to do it. Because foil it, and it's very hard, it takes hours to do it, and it's not worth it, it's not, but if someone wants to do it, the way to do it is first to heat it up very much for a long time, so it gets hot anyway, and then to go with the torch, but you'll burn your hands, so you have to put on these, you know, these gloves, and then go through, and then, because it's so hot already, so it won't take so long, but you have to make sure every spot gets red hot. So you have to go from piece to piece to piece to piece, it's a very hard thing. Yes. You regularly use a sink insert, Yeah. you probably don't have, you don't have to That's probably even if you kasher it. That's probably even if you kasher it. If you kasher it, But you only kasher there. No, no, no, the backing up is from the pipe. Oh, that! Okay, that, that is a very good point. Rabbi' Berel is making a good point, which is a reason why it is good to kasher the sink, he's right. That sometimes the water under the, this, this insert, there's space between the insert and the floor of the sink. Now, sometimes it backs up, and if it backs up, that water is חמצדיק, because that water, if it was hot, it absorbed from the sink and now it goes into your sink. you kasher it, then that water is not. But the truth is it is not as terrible because by the time it gets there it's not a כלי ראשון, it's not getting that hot, but it's a good idea, right? Right, right, it's a good idea to kasher, that's for that reason. Yeah? Yeah, you could, but it has to be very clean, it's very hard to clean it.

Now, just concerning the food, not which foods, but the minhag of gebroks, that's Lubavitch very, very strict, just talk about that for a few moments. Chametz is flour and water that you let rise. After you bake the matzah, matzah is finished, it can't get חמצדיק. So now, makes no difference what you're going to do with the matzah. You could put the matzah in water, you could do what you want, nothing is going to happen to it. But, but this goes back not more than about 250 years probably, maximum, that what happened was the Yidden get more frum and more frum. So in order to make sure that the matzah is 100% kasher, because we all know that the biggest she'ela that possible to be of chametz is on the matzah. The closest thing to chametz is not the potatoes and the peels and we worry we all worry we peel everything with this, that's far-fetched. We do it anyway, but that's far-fetched. The closest, God forbid, possibility of having chametz is the matzah, because that's the that's the problem, that's the water with the flour. That's why there used to be some people that would not eat matzah all Pesach, Pesach till the seder when they had to eat, or the kezayitim they had to eat Shabbos, and that's it, not anything extra, because that's the worst thing. But that's not our minhag and we eat matzah, but because people want to make the matzah better, so they started making it faster, that means that when they would mix the water with the flour and you knead it, they would do it much faster. When you do it very fast, sometimes some flour does not get mixed into the water and remains flour, it doesn't become part of the dough. So when you make the flat matzah and then you bake it in the oven and you take it out, it's a possibility there is still a little bit of flour left which did not become part of the dough. Now, if you're going to take that piece of matzah and put it into water, you'll have flour and water mixed, and it'll become chametz. Now, על פי הלכה, according to the normal halacha, we don't have to be choshesh, which means we don't have to suspect it's going to happen, but because we're talking about Pesach and Pesach is chametz is not בטל בששים, even a drop, so that's why we're very, very careful with this not to have matzah come in contact with water. Yes? Oil is no water. Well, in truth, in truth, you're allowed, but why would we be allowed? Because מי פירות, meaning juice, not water, juice, any type of juice, whether it's oil or apple juice or orange juice, pure, without water, you're allowed to mix with flour and it will not become חמצדיק. On the other hand, when juice gets a drop of water in it and you're going to mix that with flour, it'll become worse חמצדיק than water itself, and therefore, if you would have a drop of water fall into the oil and you would have that drop of water come in contact with the flour, I mean it's all far-fetched, first of all you have to have a drop of water fall in and second of all you have to have flour there, but if it would happen, then it would be a problem. Same thing with milk. You are, על פי דין, even according to those that are machmir not to eat gebrochts, are allowed to take matzah and dip it into milk. They used to, in those days, they used to call it שמורה מילך. שמורה מילך meant they used to watch the milk, they used to take the milk from the farm, close it up, watch, make sure that it didn't come in any contact with water, so it's pure milk, and they would on Pesach dip the matzah into the into the milk, those people that were very careful with with gebrochts. Same thing with wine. Pure wine, it doesn't make it doesn't nothing will happen. But nowadays, eggs also, eggs also, but nowadays we don't know if the milk doesn't have a drop of water in it, we're not so sure, the wine we don't know if it had a drop of water. Just to tell you just about the the milk, I'll tell you the story with with with בשר בחלב, it's just an interesting story. There was once a years ago in a certain city there was a chasunah and they had cooked all the food already, all the meat and everything was cooked, and during the day of the chasunah, somehow, by mistake, it's a whole thing of milk spilled over the food, and the big shailah became, and they came running to the Rav, and the Rav asked all kinds of questions, and it came out that there was not 60 times as much in the meat against the milk. So there's nothing you could do. But there's no other, no time, no caterer that you go and get new food, and there was nothing that you could do. So what? So that's it's mamash, it's we had פֿאַרשטערט די שמחה, the whole chasunah would have been destroyed, I mean imagine without the So they came to the Rav, I think it was Reb' Meir Shapiro, some say Reb' Shimon, and they came to him and they asked and afterward they're talking, \"Is there any עצה? Is there anything we could do?\" So he said, \"You know what? Let me think.\" So he said, \"Let me go to my office.\" And he came there and he says, \"For an hour, let me look into it. I say maybe I'll come up with some kind of way of a heter.\" He was there for an hour, all alone. After an hour he comes out, he says, \"I pasken, I figure it out, it's kasher. You could use it.\" Fine. \"Why?\" \"I can't tell you.\" He says, \"All right, he can't tell you how, but I'm telling you rely on him.\" He's the Rav and he was a big person. So they relied and they ate it, everything's fine. He didn't tell why and no one knew why. Years, years later, he told the story, he told what happened. He went into his office, quietly he called the shamash, and he said, \"Go and bring me\" they used to call him the milchiker \"the one that sells the milk here in town.\" Called him in and, whatever his name is, Reb' Moshe, and the Rav says, \"Reb' Moshe, tell me how much water do you mix into the milk?\" He says, \"Rabbi, I swear I don't! I don't mix any water!\" He says, \"I'm not, I swear to you, I'm not going to tell anybody and I'm not going to, just tell me the truth, how much water did you mix?\" So he told him how much water. It came out that if you count the water, so there's less milk, so it was בטל בששים. But he didn't want to tell because he promised him. After that מילכיקער died, that's when he told the story. This just shows how a Rav, how smart he was. I mean he figured this out, I mean, this is what he So we don't know what water comes into the milk, what water comes into the wine, so we're afraid. It's the same thing. In truth, if you'd have eggs and you'd see it, and you'd wash it, and you'd be sure that this was no water that entered, so you could do it. Really? Orange, you squeeze the orange for that. Yeah, you're allowed to squeeze the orange, but maybe the orange was wet on the outside. I'm saying you are allowed to. Yes, you're allowed to. Actually, it says in Likkutei Dibburim that in Lubavitch they used to have שמורה מילך. Used to have what? שמורה מילך. A כרעמזלאך. But it's it's not the it's not done for this reason because, see, the truth is a person in his own house by himself could do it, but when you have other people around, and you have children, and we have this, and who knows what, and this guy did this and this guy does, this time you'll don't, this could be you'll forget and you'll mix and you'll put in a drop and you forgot, let's say you washed the frying pan and you forgot to dry it and it Why start up? So can someone say it's no good, it's asur? No, I can't. But if you're asking, the advice is to stay away. What? Stay on it. It's only if you work with it, it's normally it's But by us, we're so careful with gebrochts that the Rabbi writes that a cup on Pesach before you pour in water, you have to make sure to look at it to see that there are no crumbs in it. Not, God forbid, crumbs of chametz, crumbs of matzah. That's if we're Why? Because it might have The Rebbe Rashab, not every year, but some years wouldn't use a fork whole Pesach. Because when you use a fork, there are the teeth, and in between the teeth, sometimes, you know, you put in your mouth, a piece of crumb what might be between your teeth got stuck in the teeth here, and then it'll come He didn't use it. Not every, some years he did. He used to use only a spoon those years, and the Rabbi once said that some years he would sit with a towel over his shoulder, and between each spoon that he put into his mouth, he would wipe it to make sure that it doesn't How is that helping? The first time you put it in his mouth. Afterwards, he's wiping it with the same towel. Must be some different part, a different thing. Every time, maybe a different part of it. Yes? Garlic is one of those things. It was known in many communities that garlic was not used for Pesach. And it was known even in Lubavitch communi-, I wouldn't say as a Lubavitch, you know, I don't know, it's not a ליובאוויטש מנהג, but in many Lubavitch communities was known not to. For instance, in my house, my mother would tell me, \"Oh, we spoke about garlic, surely not, we can't use garlic!\" I mean from her father, \"We can't use garlic.\" But lately, just last year, two or three years ago, someone, it was written up that someone testified that he remembered that in Lubavitch, the Rebbe Rashab once said, \"Why shouldn't you use garlic on Pesach?\" So, if some people want to take that Basically, the reason why they didn't use it does not apply now at all. Why? Why, what's wrong with garlic? How does garlic get to chametz? Well, they used to dry it, the goyim used to sell and used to come bring it to the house, and they used to dry it over their ovens. So they used to bake bread and dry it over their ovens, so they wouldn't Nowadays, that's not, no one does that, so you could buy garlic. Nevertheless, there are certain things which are accepted in the communities that because they didn't do it, they didn't They didn't eat it then, garlic is not eaten. But therefore, by us it was not that, but now that they say that the Rebbe Rashab said it, so fine. I don't know, it still would feel funny. In my house, it would feel funny to use garlic, knowing that you can't use garlic. Second, but this applies, this applies to many things which have no reason. Milchiks, for instance, to eat dairy products. Many people don't eat dairy products on Pesach. What's the reason? Because there was a problem at one point with dairy products, because if you bought milk on Pesach and the cow ate chametz on Pesach, many poskim say you couldn't eat, drink the milk. We buy the milk all, all the milk that's kasher l'Pesach is all before Pesach. A month before Pesach, they don't feed the cows chametz. I mean, there's no question that there's no she'elot whatsoever. They say that the Rabbi used to drink milk on Pesach, and so there is no she'eilah. Nevertheless, there are people who don't eat dairy. There's another reason why they didn't eat dairy in those days, because they didn't couldn't afford a second set of dishes. You had to have a פסח׳דיקע מילכיקע dishes. They didn't have money to buy one set of dishes for Pesach. To buy two sets of dishes for Pesach? So, they didn't eat.