[Avodah] matzot baked by a goy

[Zev Sero]

On Areivim, Eli Turkel wrote:
>> The woman in question was rolling the matzos.  This job is not
>> halachically necessary at all.  One could just take a lump of dough,
>> of the size that is distributed to each roller (which is usually
>> thinner than a tefach), punch a few holes in it, and put it straight
>> in the oven, and it would be a kosher matzah.  The rolling is done,
>> not to make it a kosher matzah, but to make it a nice and useful
>> and edible one, and to avoid the possibility that the inside didn't
>> bake completely and could become chametz.  So even if this matzah
>> was rolled by that woman, and she is a goy, no real harm has been done.>>

> I am currently learning shoneh halachot from RCK. He says that
> lechatchila even the water drawn for the matzot (mayim she-lanu)
> should be by an adult Jew, not a ghoy or a minor/chesh/shoteh.
> All melachot connected with the baking of the matzo after cutting
> the wheat should be done by an adult Jew.
> Again this is lechatchila.

Lechatchila, yes.  But we are talking bediavad.  The matzah has already
been baked, and the question is whether the yichus of the person who
did the rolling matters.

In any case, drawing the water, cutting the wheat, etc., are all
halachically necessary jobs.  You don't get matzot if you don't do
them.  But rolling is *not* necessary; the matzot would be just as
kosher without it.  And it's not listed by name among the jobs that
have to be done lishmah.  We can add it in from our own sevara, but
perhaps there's a reason why it's not mentioned.




> For the mitzvat matzah at the seder

Which is all we're talking about, because for the rest of Pesach
the whole thing can be done by goyim.


> even standing over the goy and warning them is not enough

According to this opinion.  There is another opinion that even
lechatchila all the work can be done by goyim, because it's only
the *shemira* that must be done lishmah, and that is done by the
mashgiach.



> Similarly if the mitzvah starts from grinding then the grinding cannot
> be done by a goy or a minor even if someone is watching them.
> According to the opinion that shmira starts from the cutting then the
> cutting of the wheat has to be done by an adult Jew.

Once again, according to the other opinion, these can be done by a
goy so long as there is a Jewish mashgiach, who is doing the mitzvah
of "ushemartem et hamatzot".
 

Another point: since the issue is kavanah, it's not clear why the
person's technical yichus matters so much.  Does anyone really imagine
that this woman's kavanah depends on whether her mother's mother was
Jewish?  She has the same level of kavanah or lack thereof, whether
she's technically Jewish or not.  She says "leshem matzos mitzvah"
because the mashgiach tells her to say it, just like all the other
women at the table, many of whom are no more shomrei mitzvot than
she is.  So even if it turns out that she's not Jewish, how are her
matzot any worse than theirs?  If the roller's own kavanah is
required, then only shomrei mitzvot should be allowed to roll; since
the practise at all the bakeries is not so, and these women are
allowed to roll the matzot, with a mashgiach supervising their work,
obviously the bakeries are relying on a psak that it's not so
important for this work to be done by a person who can be relied on
to have a true kavanah lishmah.  So replacing her matzah with one
done by her neighbour, or by a similar woman at another bakery,
doesn't really achieve anything.

-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas