public service announcement

[cellio]

When Streit's writes, on the package of egg matzah (which is much tastier than the plain sort), "egg matzos may be eaten only by the infirm, aged or children according to Shulchan Aruch", what they mean is "...in order to fulfill the obligation at the seder specifically". Why they don't say that is beyond me. It confused me the first year I was paying attention (so I asked), and I was just reminded of it by the box of matzah sitting on my desk here at work. (The rest of the week you don't have to eat matzah at all if you don't want to; you just have to not eat chametz.)

Comments

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

So far as I know, the issue doesn't have to do with whether the matzah came in contact with water. It's not a universal custom to avoid contact between matzah and water after the baking process (e.g., making matzah balls or using cake meal or just plain getting the matzah wet). That seems to be mostly a Chasidishe minhag.

I think -- don't quote me on this, but I think -- the concern is making sure the matzah is equivalent to bread. To qualify, it has to be a mixture of flour and mostly water. With egg matzah or juice matzah, eggs or juice provide the majority of the moisture for the dough, not water.

[cellio]

Thanks for the help.

So far as I know, the issue doesn't have to do with whether the matzah came in contact with water.

I meant during the preparation -- before it's matzah. A cursory glance at web-available sources suggests at at least some decisors were concerned that the juice might not be purely juice but might also contain a drop of water (and a single drop is apparently no differently halachically from all water).

Some people also have a custom of not eating (finished) matzah that has come into contact with liquid (so no matzahbrie for them, I guess). That's not what I meant here; sorry for the confusion.

I think -- don't quote me on this, but I think -- the concern is making sure the matzah is equivalent to bread.

That makes sense for the seder, where we say motzi (not mezunot). I'm not sure how that applies for the rest of the week, though, so long as you know what you're eating and which bracha to say.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I don't quite get the drop-of-water-in-juice bit -- as long as it's all cooked within 18 minutes, why would it be a problem. Maybe it takes longer to make egg or juice matzah. I dunno.

I don't think -- once again, don't quote me on this -- that this is a big deal at any time but seder night. You aren't supposed to eat matzah during the day that leads up to seder night (at a minumum -- some people have a custom to wait as long as a month prior to Pesach). But if you have a baby/small child who's hungry or are taking care of a sick elderly person who's hungry, you can feed them egg or juice matzah prior to the seder if that's all you have. (It's supposed to be easier on the stomach than matzah and therefore more suitable for babies and sick people.) I think you can eat it whenever you want for the rest of the week.

[cellio]

I don't quite get the drop-of-water-in-juice bit -- as long as it's all cooked within 18 minutes, why would it be a problem.

Ditto.

I think you can eat it whenever you want for the rest of the week.

That's my assertion (and someone gave me such a ruling once), but apparently some Ashkenazi sources actually say no egg matzah at all unless you're sick/old/a child. I'm having trouble understanding why, but I haven't spent a lot of time looking at it.

flour and mostly water

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

So, when it's not Passover, if I decide to make bread that features milk as the main liquid instead of water, does that bread take a mitzonos bracha instead of a hamotzi?

Re: flour and mostly water

[sethg]

This kind of bread (usually made with fruit juice as the water-substitute, instead of milk) is called a mezonot roll. As the name suggests, some rabbis say that you would indeed make mezonot over such a roll, rather than hamotzi. As the articles you can read by following the link suggests, this is a controversial opinion.

Re: flour and mostly water

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Yes. However, there is a halachic ruling stating that one shouldn't make bread with milk unless it's made in a conspicuously different shape from regular bread to avoid the possibility that someone will assume it's parve and eat it with meat. The topic is discussed on this page.

Re: flour and mostly water

[cellio]

As the others said, yes but it's controversial (and milk-based bread should look different). Back when they actually served meals on airlines, sometimes the kosher meals came with mezunot rolls (labelled as such) to save you the hassle of hand-washing before bread on an airplane. So you got something bread-like with your meal but without the halachic hassle of actual bread.

Re: flour and mostly water

[goljerp]

So you got something bread-like with your meal but without the halachic hassle of actual bread.

Except sometimes they didn't. I got a note once with my meal, saying the caterer wanted to give a mezunot roll, but the O-U thought that people should say the full benching after the meal anyhow, so the O-U forbade the caterer from giving a mezunot roll, and they (the caterers) were terribly sorry, but the rolls were real bread rolls. They suggested that if people didn't want to (or couldn't) get up to wash beforehand, that they not eat the rolls.

I really wish I'd saved the note.

I see this whole issue with Egg matzah as another example of the O-U using their power to take a small, uncommon practice (not eating egg matzah at all during passover) and trying to force it on the greater Jewish community. Well, my custom is, whenever eating egg matzah on passover, to say, "My, I feel particularly middle-aged and healthy today!"

Re: flour and mostly water

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

>> I see this whole issue with Egg matzah as another example of the O-U using their power to take a small, uncommon practice

Uh ... I don't get it. Not least because the OU is hardly the only company that certifies egg matzah as kosher l'Pesach ... If you ask me, the confusion stems from the fact that the wording on the box comes off as odd (and certainly non-specific about when eating egg matzah is an issue). Yeah, people do have different customs about this. But ... the mighty super-powerful meanies at the OU, running around the country and shaming people out of not eating egg matzah? I just can't see it. Besides, why would you make halachic decisions based on a cardboard box? I would think family minhag or a rav's advice would be more important.

Re: flour and mostly water

[goljerp]

Gosh, when you put it that way, it sounds a bit paranoid. Perhaps I was over-reacting. Or maybe they are all really out to get me :-)

So an interesting question is this: do the non-OU egg matzahs have the same wording? Because I've seen identical wording on egg matzah from different companies, with the only connection being that they were certified by the OU, which makes me think that they (the OU) are responsible for the wording. No company in their right mind would print something that confusing on the box of something they're trying to sell.

Besides, why would you make halachic decisions based on a cardboard box? I would think family minhag or a rav's advice would be more important.

Well, I would never do that. Nor, apparently, would you. But there are a lot of people whose family minhag is to eat whatever, and who find it much easier to just figure that the OU knows what they're talking about. Or who think that it's always better to be stricter. Or who don't have a local rav they trust as much as the esteemed folks at OU.

Re: flour and mostly water

[cellio]

So an interesting question is this: do the non-OU egg matzahs have the same wording?

The package from which I was quoting was certified by Kof-K.