[Avodah] Baking Matza Until it is Hard

[Zev Sero]

kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:

> 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.

Except that making "a thin wafer-like dough", as we do today, and which
results in this hardening, is *not* mentioned in any posek.  When the
poskim talk about making matzos thin, they mean reducing the thickness
to a mere etzba (2 cm).  Our matzos are perhaps a tenth of that.


> 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.

Except that when you bake matzos an etzba thick (let alone before this
"new-fangled hiddur" was introduced and the matzos were even thicker)
they *must* be made soft or they will be inedible.   Until the late
18th century there were in fact very thick and hard matzos baked,
called "raib-matzos", which were inedible, and were ground into matza-
meal.  But all the poskim of ~200-250 years ago denounced these, and
the practise fell away.  That left them with the thinner matzos which
were to be eaten, and which therefore had to be at least somewhat soft
(though still difficult for old and young people, who therefore needed
to be allowed matza ashira).

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
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