[Avodah] Gebrochts

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 01:47:03PM -0400, Zev Sero wrote:
:>Thanks to RSZ, who cited this SAhR in a discussion some years back about
:>how long ago Ashkenazim started exclusively making crispy matzos.

: I must apologise for having confused two things.  As I think I pointed
: out later in that thread, and as RCGS has pointed out this time around,
: the change the Rav explicitly mentions is not to thin matzos (as I had
: originally misremembered) but to quick processing (i.e. 18-minute batches).

We weren't speaking of thin matzos, but of crispy matzos. A wrap
is also thin. Matzos progressively got thinner in the 18th and 19th
centuries, we know this from illustrations and descriptions of flour
per matzah. (Assuming the matzos weren't a yard or more across.)

What did change in the 18th cent in particular was this notion that
the clock shouldn't be stopped for kneading (just in case!). And in the
19th century, the holes got closer together. Before then, people would
draw pictures on the matzah, e.g. a seh representing the qorban pesach,
drawn in dots. The roller was motivated by the greater rush, which no
longer left time for poking holes in any pretty pattern.

What I'm trying to say is, all these shifts happened at one time. When
matzos actually ended up crispy could have been later than the SA haRav,
but NOT earlier than the minhag he mentioned.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 11th day, which is
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