Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Baking matzah erev pesach

The Rishonim highlight the connection between korban pesach and matzah and suggest (as an asmachta b'alma - not a real limud) that matzah should ideally be baked on erev pesach when the korban pesach was offered. Other Rishonim reject this idea. While baking bo bayom offers the hiddur of fresher (and tastier) matzah, baking earlier has a halachic advantage in that before the time of issur chameitz set in, chameitz can be bateil. Therefore, waiting until the last minute carries with it the danger of not having bittul to fall back on in case of error.
I have yet to understand why some people try to bake their own matzah. The mitzva is eating not baking. The people who bake all day can probably do a better and faster job than I could.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:27 PM

    For the same reason that people build their own sukka. It's a hechsher mitzva.

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  2. Rashi in Makkos (daf 7?) implies that building a sukkah itself is a mitzvah.
    Is there a din of "mitzva bo yoseir m'bshlucho" by hechsher mitzva?

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  3. Anonymous10:07 AM

    There's a Netziv about it in Ha'amek Shaila (all the way at the end - in V'zos Habracha - I think #137. Not sure though). He says that Rashi calls building a sukka a mitzva - even though it's only a hechsher - because the pasuk specifically says "Chag hasukkos ta'aseh licha", which implies a somewhat greater level of mitzva in the actual hechsher. Regardless, though, it's still a hechsher.

    I hear what you're saying though. L'maaseh, it's a quasi-mitzva (according to Rashi/Netziv), so there might be an adifus in doing it yourself.

    On the other hand, the gemara in Sukka qualifies those that are "osek b'mitzva" as even someone who is on his way to see his Rebbi on the regel, which is also clearly a hechsher. So baking matzos could be considered "osek b'mitzva".

    Hanach l'hem...it's certainly not a bad thing :)

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  4. Why do you assume bittul can't come into affect after chatzos?
    This is a machlokes rosh and rambam.
    The halacha follows the rosh that the issur mashehu only begins at night with the issur kareis

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  5. Why do you assume bittul can't come into affect after chatzos?
    This is a machlokes rosh and rambam.
    The halacha follows the rosh that the issur mashehu only begins at night with the issur kareis

    ReplyDelete