You shall eat nothing leavened. In all your habitations you shall eat unleavened bread.’ ”
Not to eat any mixture containing leaven during Passover
The cited verse
The Hebrew (Masoretic Text)
כָּל־מַחְמֶצֶת לֹא תֹאכֵלוּ בְּכֹל מוֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם תֹּאכְלוּ מַצּוֹת
In Maimonides’ words
How Maimonides defines this commandment in his Sefer HaMitzvot — his own words, shown as a primary source.
הזהירנו מאכול דברים שיש בהם תערובת חמץ ואע"פ שאינן לחם כגון המורייס והכותח והשכר והדומה להם, והוא אמרו כל מחמצת לא תאכלו לרבות כותח הבבלי ושכר המדי וחומץ האדומי יכול יהיו חייבין עליהן כרת תלמוד לומר כי כל אוכל חמץ ונכרתה. מה חמץ מיוחד שהוא מין חמץ גמור יצאו אלו שאינן חמץ גמור ולמה באו לעבור עליהן בלא תעשה. וכבר התבאר בפסחים שענין היותם אסורים ומוזהר מאכילתם לא נתחייב באכילתם מלקות אלא אם היה בהן כזית חמץ בכדי אכילת פרס, אמנם אם היה בהן עירוב חמץ פחות מזה השיעור אין חייבים על אכילתן מלקות. (שם, שם):
He prohibited us from eating things that have an admixture of chametz (leavened grain products) [on Pesach] - even though they are not bread - such as (brine,) cereal and ale and that which is similar to them. And that is His saying, "You shall eat nothing leavened" (Exodus 12:20). [And the language of the Mekhilta (Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Bar Yochai 12:20) is, "'You shall eat nothing leavened,'] to include Babylonian cereal, Median beer and Edomite vinegar. Perhaps we would be liable excision for them? [Hence] we learn to say, '"for whoever eats chametz shall be excised' (Exodus 12:15). What is specific to chametz is that it is fully chmetz - excluding these that are not fully chametz. So why did they appear? To transgress a negative commandment with them." And it has already been explained in Pesachim (Pesachim 43a) that the matter of their eating being liable for lashes is only if there is a kazayit of chametz in [the time] needed to eat a peras. But if the admixture of chametz was less than this amount, we are not liable lashes for their eating. (See Parashat Bo; Mishneh Torah, Leavened and Unleavened Bread.)
Hebrew: Sefer HaMitzvot, Warsaw 1883 (public domain). English: Sefaria Edition, trans. Rabbi Francis Nataf, 2021 (CC0). Via Sefaria; translator’s footnotes omitted.
Literary form: a prohibition
Applicability
How the catalog describes where and when this commandment applies. These are independent descriptions, not a verdict on which laws still count.
- Recorded as practiced today
Classical halakhic consequences
The consequences the classical halakhah attaches to this commandment, grouped by who imposes them. Where a category has none recorded, that absence is itself meaningful.
Imposed by a court
- Lashes (malkot)
At the hands of Heaven
- Karet — being 'cut off'
Ritual remedy
- A sin-offering (ḥatat)
How the streams of Judaism treat this commandment
The streams of Judaism read the same commandment differently — an ongoing plurality, not a ranking. Each position below is reported as the catalog records it; none is presented as the correct one.
- Orthodox Binding
- Conservative Binding
- Reform Kept as an ethical principle
- Reconstructionist Not binding
- Karaite As the catalog records it: binding peshat only
24 of 613 commandments have been examined in depth so far — this one is queued.
How later traditions received this commandment
How later traditions read or reworked this commandment, each attributed to its own voice. The catalog’s own classification of each reception is shown as it records it, never adopted as GEBible’s.
Rabbinic aggadah
- Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana, Piska 5 expanded it homiletically
Philo of Alexandria
- De Specialibus Legibus 2.158-161 read it allegorically
Josephus
- Ant. 2.317 described it
The New Testament
- 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 read it allegorically Paul reads the removal of leaven as a metaphor for purging 'malice and wickedness'; 'cleanse out the old leaven'
- Galatians 5:9 read it allegorically 'a little leaven leavens the whole lump' — redeployed metaphorically; any echo of the rabbinic mashehu stringency is speculative
Where this commandment meets modern human-rights frameworks
One modern normative lens, attributed to it — not GEBible’s assessment. Each row names the framework it measures against and the catalog’s own classification of the relation.
This framework catalogues tensions; it records agreement in only one of its entries. The near-total tension rate is the shape of the instrument, not a finding.
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general principle
This framework classifies the relation as an incompatible method.
The commandment prescribes malkot for eating any mixture containing leavened ingredients during Passover; post-Enlightenment penal norms reject corporal punishment as a state sanction for dietary infractions.
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Article 7
This framework classifies the relation as a direct contradiction.
Article 7 of the ICCPR prohibits cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; judicially administered flogging for consuming food containing trace leavening constitutes prohibited treatment under that article.
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abrogated_in_practice
This framework classifies the relation as abrogated in practice.
Corporal jurisdiction lapsed with the dissolution of the Sanhedrin in the Second Temple era; no contemporary Jewish court administers malkot, though the de jure norm remains binding in orthodox halakhah.