Orach Chaim 442:6-9 Scraping Chametz Off the Walls - Crazy Chumra or Accepted Minhag?

We've always, you know, people talk about scraping Chomets off the walls and things like that.

We'll see, actually, that it's not as outlandish as it may seem.

Says the Mechaba, Na'gu le-garer ha-ksalim.

There is a minhag to scrape the walls to get rid of chomets, where chomets may have touched them.

They have what to rely on.

It's not a crazy minhag.

There is what to rely on.

And if there is chomets in a crevice, in a crack, which you can't sort of scrape away, you just put a bit of cement over it, so you make it inaccessible.

Says the Mishnah Beruah, You shouldn't scoff at this minach, that they're literally washing the walls.

Don't think it's crazy, and it's a big khumrah.

There is a smach in the Yerushalmi, because it says there, If the walls of his house were covered in dough, he's got to be Mavaya.

So therefore, you know, there is an allusion, a smach to this in Yerushalmi.

Again, it's not normative practice.

We don't wash our walls.

But if you see people going over and above and doing it, don't scoff at them because there is a smach in the Yerushalmi, says the Mishnah B'Av.

Even if you've got a kazayis of chomit in this crevice, And it's hard to scrape it out.

You can just cover it over and make it inaccessible.

Okay, so that's the end of Sif Vov.

There's a fascinating note in Note 50.

The Rav Nisman Karelitz makes a very interesting observation based on this Mishnah Burah.

He says, A shaham minig Yisrael hu rak minig sheyesh leis smach u'mekar.

A minig Yisrael has got to have some sort of source.

Avol ma she stam nagu lehachmer, eina b'chalal minig Yisrael.

If a psalm a person takes on a khumrah, which has no source for it, okay, that's your choice, but don't call that minag Yisrael.

So it's a very interesting point.