[Avodah] Baking Matza Until it is Hard

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Meir Rabi wrote:
> I believe there is no mention of baking Matza until it is hard in
> the Mishneh Berurah, Aruch HaShulchan or the Sh Oruch HaRav.
> It is not even mentioned as a custom or as a passing comment.
> Am I mistaken?

I am not familiar with machine matzos, but I can testify that when I was part of my yeshiva's chabura making hand matzos, they were NOT baked until they were hard.

Rather, they were baked until they were "done", as in "fit to eat". They had a nice brownish "crust" on both faces and on the rim, and the inside was still while. More importantly to the question, when they came out of the oven, they were still soft, pliable, and moist.

However, about a minute or so after being removed from the oven, the matza would dry out and become hard. But this was a separate step, which occurs *after* the matza is done baking.

If any posek considers this to be a requirement, custom, or whatever (as RMR is searching for), I predict it will be difficult to find, as it would be phrased in terms of "the matza is baked until such time as it will become hard after it is removed from the oven."

Rather, I suspect that no such requirement exists according to anyone, and that all poskim of all stripes merely require that the matza be fully baked, and that the hardness is merely a result of thinness of the matza, which *is* something that the poskim mention. Making a thin wafer-like dough *is* mentioned as a way to insure that the matza can be baked quickly, easily, and fully. The resulting hardness is not required - maybe not even desired - but is merely an inevitable side-effect.

Perhaps someday, someone will figure out a way to make matzos which are cracker-thin and fully-baked, yet still soft. But if that does happen, I predict that a machlokes will arise over the definition of "fully baked", and some will claim that the softness is evidence that it is *not* fully baked.

Akiva Miller

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