Rabbi Elyashiv: Don't Buy Post-Passover Leaven From Secular Or Non-Orthodox Jews

The sale of leavened food by a secular person has no halachic validity, and therefore one must not buy hametz after the holiday of Passover in businesses which are not owned by religious people, Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv rules.

Post-Pesach warning: Don't buy chametz from seculars
Rabbi Yosef Efrati renews Rabbi Elyashiv's ruling that one must not buy leavened food made before Passover in secular person's business
Kobi Nahsoni • Ynet

The sale of leavened food by a secular person has no halachic validity, and therefore one must not buy chametz after the holiday of Passover in businesses which are not owned by religious people, Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv rules.

According to the haredi authority, when it comes to a person who does not observe mitzvot, "there is no real intention in the sale, and he sees it as a 'religious act' only."

Rabbi Elyashiv's ruling, which was given in the past, has been renewed in an "announcement to the public" issued by the rabbi's associate, Rabbi Yosef Efrati.

According to the announcement, special bills have been issued by kashrut organizations which can solve the problem.

According to Jewish Law, one must not eat chametz owned by a Jew during Pesach, as its owner violated the injunction that "no leaven shall be seen or found in your possession."

Selling the chametz to a non-Jew provided a solution for big businesses and factories which may suffer many losses by destroying all the leavened food in their possession. However, there are those who do not rely on this sale and make certain to only buy chametz that was made after the holiday.

Rabbi Efrati runs a large kosher certifying business and, according to Rabbi Elyashiv and Rabbi Efrati, kashrut organizations, including Efrati's, have "bills" – i.e., contracts – that can "solve" the "problem."

What a coincidence.

Comments

[Maskil]

...when it comes to a person who does not observe mitzvot, "there is no real intention in the sale, and he sees it as a 'religious act' only.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the "observant" the sale of the chametz is seen as a 'religious act' only and cannot be regarded as a true sale. This time Elyashiv overstepped his authority due to being far out of touch with the average "observant" Jew, for whom he would be making pilpulim to justify their chametz sales, but instead is doing the opposite. Ouch, that means one should not buy chametz that had been 'sold' over Pesach by almost any Jew.

[A E ANDERSON]

This Eliyashiv guy is obviously a haredi nut job.

[jay]

He found yet another way to use religion in order to direct the flow of money where they want it to go.

[Barry]

Does anyone doubt for one moment that any gentile 'purchaser' has any intention to to purchase chometz? He regards this procedure as a harmless pharissie farce from which he can make a few bucks from some crazy fundamentalist Jews. If the seller's intention is of relevance for validity then so is the buyer's.

[who knows]

Neither buyer nor seller really mean it. No one ever went ahead and took the hametz sold for Passover. Since this is the case, then the only goal that Elyashiv and Efrati have is to increase their income.

Use of religion as a money making vehicle is as old as the religion itself. If it is recognized by everybody, the harm done by this practice will be minimized.

[shlomo zalman]

We all know that this sale is fictional, but the rabbis sanction it nontheless. That's ok with me. However, I do not believe that the esteemed Rabbi gave this psak, it is just too stupid to be true.

[Barry]

Is there not a special category on ebay for buying chometz adhering to pots?

[HaNavon]

HA! this proves my point!!! This is an example of how he's trying to put SHEFA SHUK out of business!! The dynamic duo (elyashiv and kanyevsky) we're accused of accepting bribes to poskin things that would make money for their friends, and put their friends enemies out of business!!
HAHAHA! there's so much evidence building up, and the chareidim are really in for a 'great depression' when they wake up and realize that their own leaders are frauds!

[Jon]

HaNavon - that shouldn't make you happy...

[maven]

I don't understand why they don't just eat matzah all year round, then there wouldn't be problems, and before too long that would be the new Torah Judaism, with all its apologists, etc. Less crazy than kosher burkas, and will ensure that people only use the strictest rabbinical supervision since nothing now available in stores would be kosher anymore! And baal teshuvas would love it, it would be just what they're looking for in masochistic self abusing praxis!

[No name]

In what way is such a sale by a religious Jew valid? If the sale of chametz is not valid, it is not valid across the board, whether secular or religious. It is very convenient to sell chametz, but seems that this lacks a real basis as a valid practice! Someone enlighten me.

Furthermore, the reasoning doesn't make sense. If a "secular person" sees it as a "religious act," then that is more on the side of religiosity than we can normally say for a secular person... not less. Why can a secular businessman not have intention in making a sale? Of course he can, just as a religious businessman can.

[william e emba]

I know many people who agree that the sales we generally do today are complete farces, and they therefore do real sales. For one dollar, the key is given to the goy, all the chometz gmar you can eat (with a beer thrown in at the sale itself) and then the chometz is bought back for up to $100. Maybe a frozen pizza went missing, maybe not.

They don't have any trouble with farcical sales of the farcical chometz that they've annulled anyway, as in the absorbed flavoring in their pots.

Rav Moshe poskened that insincere sales (as demonstrated by a store owner still doing business with the goods) are still sales, and the after-pesach chometz of such people are something like stolen goods, and thus not actually banned. Personally, I think the idea of who is a Jewish owner in regards to corporation stores has become too murky to make sense, so I'm not the least bit concerned with the status of their sales, so long as they do them.

Whatever happened the time in Yerushalayim when they discovered the Arab they had been selling chometz to for years was the son of a Jewish mother all along?

[Yochanan Lavie]

If one eats matzoh, it comes in contact with saliva and becomes gebrockts. The obvious solution is to grind it into a fine powder, put it in a condom, and swallow it, like a drug smuggler. This is how it was originally done at Yitziat Mitzrayim. (humor)

[Maskil]

maven,

"I don't understand why they don't just eat matzah all year round, then there wouldn't be problems..."

That says it all. The Chief Rabbinate bans the ascent to the Temple Mount due to the concern that a non-observant Jew might violate one of the gravest of transgressions, an issur karet (excision of the eternal soul from Jewish connection to God). Eating chametz on Pesach has the same level of severity, karet, and the ban of chametz year round would prevent any Jew from, heaven forefend, committing such a serious offense. Oh, and any violation of Shabbat laws also carry the punishment of karet, so it would be in our best interest if the Rabbinate would mandate the keeping of Shabbat at all times. This would seriously prevent some grave situations and save our nation from the risk of descent to the unforgivable. Only then will we be a righteous nation worthy of the world's respect.

[maven]

Maskil: and you know how this will play out, Hirhurim will soon write that those modern orthodox "leaven eaters" are not as truly orthodox as the the true "orthomatz", etc.

And I see that YL is already prepared for the next level of chumrah, so some orthomatz will not eat at homes of others who may be "weaker" Jews, ie, "orthobruks".

Aish will be all over this very soon!
BT OCD heaven!!!

[Pessie Gelb]

The question nowadays should be who can we be 100% sure is really a goy. Hispanics can be suspected of jewish descent because the spanish and portuguese inquisitions forced millions of jews to assimilate. Just because somebody doesnt have a spanish surname doesnt mean that they are not of direct maternal descent from the descendents of the inquisition. The mother of Vendyl Jones was probably jewish because she preached against the new testament and all preachers who preach against the the new testament. Vendyl Jones thinks he is a goy , but he is probably not a goy and that is why he has not been able to find the ark of the covenant. And what about all of descendants of the 10 lost tribes?
I think that next year we should find an eskimo to sell our chumetz to or at least a pure blooded canadian indian. The eskimos and the indians came to america during the doir hafluga over the bering strait land bridge that was created by the fact that sea level droped by a few hundred feet during the mabil flood that noiach and his descendants excaped from in the taivu and that much of the rain from the mabil froze especially at higher elevation and caused the ice age that caused the bering straight land bridge to form.
Some of the South American , Central American, Mexican and Suthwest American indians intermarried with hispanics but the eskimos and canadian indians never intermarrried with hispanics.

[Mr. Apikoros]

I always thought A-Rod is Jewish. Now I know. Good work, Pessie.

A couple of minor quibbles: In general, sea levels don't drop during a flood serious enough to submerge Mt. Ararat, which is over 16,000' high. Also, the last Ice Age ended at approximately 9,000 B.C., which is 5,240 years before the universe was created, give or take a few decades.

[maven]

Pessie, fabulous. I didn't realize one could fit so much crazy into three little paragraphs.

[Pessie Gelb]

Mr Apikorus says that the last ice age ended 11,010 years ago. We know from the story of Noiach that the last ice age that occured right after the flood was about four and a half thousand years ago. Given the uncertainty of scientific ways of figuring out chronology, this is a very small discrepancy.

[Pessie Gelb]

Also how do you explain the fact that all of the high mountains of the world are covered by ice which in some places such as Antarctica and Greenland is more than 2 miles thick and how do you explain the fact that these icecaps and glaciers are still melting? Also how do you explain the fact that Noiach's ark has been seen through the ice from airplanes flying over Mt Ararat? For a boat to be buried in the ice near the top of a 16,000 foot high mountain there had to have been liquid unfrozen water to carry the boat up the mountain.

[Mr. Apikoros]

Scientific methods of figuring out chronology, which include carbon-14 dating, are pretty accurate. From that, we know the ice receded approximately 11,000 years ago, and 6,500 years would be an enormous discrepancy.

Mount Ararat has been climbed many, many times, and nobody has found a boat near the summit yet. Besides, the actual mountain where the Ark was alleged to have landed is nearby Mt. Judi which is only 7,000' high and well below treeline (not that there are many trees in the area) so it would be very accessible to explorers. Nobody's found an ark there either. And where are the descendants of all the lions, tigers, elephants, and leopards that were on the ark? All disappeared, having been eaten by starving humans?

As far as ice melting is concerned, the icecap in Antartica is growing, not shrinking, so, despite what Al Gore tells you, the next Ice Age is coming soon to a shtetl near you. Not that whether the ice is melting or not melting has anything to do with the ALLEGORICAL story of Noah.

Debating folks like you, Maskil, Cheskel, and the various Chiams (not to mention Shmarya) is like arguing with my cats.

[ruthie]

yochanan lavie...you're funny, important to this blog and you sound unique!
but seriously this is a sad subject...just pushes me away.
my neshama hurts.
c'mon are some of these rabbis for real? if yes, i'm scared..

[Mr. Apikoros]

The Muslims believe that Noah's ark landed in the northern Tigris Valley near the triple border of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. This would be at the base of Mount Judi. In fact, a Muslim imam of the 10th Century claimed he used the wood of the Ark to build a mosque. I'm a bit skeptical of this story.

But if there were a Great Flood in prehistoric times, this would be a logical spot. The Tigris River is at a low elevation even that far north, and about 8,000 years ago, when the last of the glacier melted, the sea level rose several hundred feet.

Contrary to what Al Gore and his acolytes may have told you, in those days sea levels were considerably higher than today, and the weather was also quite a bit warmer than now (we're in the recovery phase from the so-called "Little Ice Age" which began around 1450 and continued until approximately 1850). So it would be logical to assume sea levels were higher than today.

Indeed, the city of Ur in Iraq was a seaport in ancient times. Today its ruins lie 25' or more above sea level.

What's most amazing to me about all this is that 8,000 years ago (or more) there were supposedly no written languages. Yet the tradition of a great flood has been kept alive in many civilizations.

[R]

I thought they have little stickers on food items telling you that the flour used was bought after pesach. I have no idea when this flour was made though.
They have these signs on ther food stock all year round. So i wonder which pesach they are refering to.

[Pessie Gelb]

Mr Apikorus:
The great flood was only about 4 and a half thousand years ago and there was allready written language at the time

[Mr. Apikoros]

Yes, and Noah's Ark landed at or near the summit of Mt. Ararat, which is 16,900' high. That's three miles and change. The only parts of the globe that are 3 miles and more above sea level are high mountain peaks in the Himalayas, Hindu Kush, Andes, and a few other individual mountains, plus maybe half of the Tibetan Plateau.

All of Europe would have been submerged, including Mount Blanc (I'll leave it as a subject of debate as to whether Mr. Elbruz is in Europe or Asia). Ditto for the USA except Alaska.

If Noah's Ark landed three miles up (and this was after the water was already starting to recede, according to Genesis), where did the water recede to? Where does water three miles deep covering 99.9% of the earth's surface go(the oceans of course would have been 3 miles deeper than they are now)? Did it just evaporate and get blown off into outer space? Must have been one heck of a heat wave.