[Avodah] Shehecheyanu on Matza

[Akiva Miller via Avodah]

R' Micha Berger offered some references to Avudraham, R SY Zevin, and Rav
Ovadia Yosef, which he summarized:

> IOW, there is a chiyuv to say shehechiyanu on the
> mitzvah of matzah, it's just fulfilled in other ways.

But that answers a question which is slightly different than the one that I
had asked. It answers the question, "Why does it SEEM that we never say
Shehecheyanu on the mitzva of eating matzah?"

But that wasn't my question. My question concerned the situation where one
is omitting Asher Ga'alanu because he has neither any kind of wine nor any
kind of chamar medinah, and is saying Kiddush directly on the matzah. In
such a case, he holds the matzah in his hands, and says Hamotzi, Kiddush,
Shehecheyanu, and THEN Al Achilas Matzah, and then eats the matzah.

As I wrote in my previous post, this is the sequence prescribed by the
Maamar Mordechai (and cited l'halacha by Beur Halacha 483 "Ad Shegomer" and
Kaf HaHayyim 483:8), who reasons that "birkas zman bichlal kiddush hu" -
Shehecheyanu is part of Kiddush. It seems clear to me that according to
Maamar Mordechai, Beur Halacha, and Kaf HaHayyim, matza is *not* relevant
to Shehecheyanu. Furthermore, this sequence of brachos is exactly parallel
to the way most say Kiddush on the second night of Sukkos (placing Layshev
BaSukkah *after* the Shehecheyanu), and is specifically designed to include
the holiday in the Shehecheyanu, and to *omit* the sukkah itself from the
Shehecheyanu.

This is in sharp contrast to the *first* night of Sukkos, where we say
Hagafen, Kiddush, Layshev, and finally Shehecheyanu at the very end,
specifically to insure that the Shehecheyanu is not merely on the holiday,
but on the sukkah too.

In other words: It is very nice that when we are at normal Seder, various
poskim tell us to have the matzah in mind when we say the Shehecheyanu at
kiddush, or when we say V'higiyanu on the second cup. But law is clarified
by the *un*usual cases, such as an abbreviated Seder which doesn't have a
second cup. In such a case, it seems that matzah does not get a
Shehecheyanu AT ALL. I find that surprising, and even shocking, that sukkah
gets a Shehecheyanu, but matzah does not.

On a related issue, RMB wrote:

> Tangentially: R' RY Eisenman spoke Fri night about
> whether there is a chiyuv to make a shehechianu on
> a new gun.

To me, this sounds relevant to the question of saying Shehecheyanu at
Bedikas Chametz. I'm too lazy to look this up directly, but the
Halachipedia (http://halachipedia.com/index.php?title=Bedikat_Chametz)
offers three different answers at footnote 101:

> Bear Hetiev says it’s included in Shehecheyanu of Yom
> Tov, Pri Megadim M”Z 431:2 says it’s not a mitzvah of
> Simcha, Meiri says there’s no Shehecheyanu on Bedika
> which is just done to prevent you from a prohibition.
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