Chametz, also Chometz, Ḥametz, Ḥameṣ and other spellings transliterated from Hebrew: חָמֵץ / חמץ, are leavened foods that are forbidden on the Jewish holiday of Passover. According to Jewish law, Jews may not own, eat or benefit from chametz during Passover. This law appears several times in the Torah; the punishment for eating chametz on Passover is the divine punishment of kareth (“spiritual excision”), one of the severest levels of punishment in Judaism. For non-Jews, this punishment would be understood as the equivalent of eternal damnation. (source)