[Avodah] Soft Matza in the MB ShA HaRav and the A HaShulchan, Siman 486

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 01:20:48AM +1100, Meir Rabi wrote:
: R Micha commented that he "had a hard time believing that the MB and the AhS
: assume soft matzos"

: I dont know what you mean R Micha. Do you mean that you are not sure that
: what they say refers to soft Matza?

No, I'm saying I find it startling they bother to discuss soft matzah. It
was almost certainly out of use among Ashkenazim for decades before
they wrote.

Frankly, I think your problem is that you assumed I'm writing a polemic
against your position. No, I'm just sharing what I found looking up the
sources you gave. Lemaaseh I generally order soft matzos for the seder.

...
: They all use the words, "afilu hi rakah va'asuyah kisfug"

Yes, because it's an idiom, "belilah rakah kisfug" or "haasuyah kisfug",
etc...

...
: I simply wished to point out that theses Acharonim had no hesitation in
: mentioning Soft Matza at all. They did not see any reason to consider that
: Soft Matza should NOT be used.

I don't think you can prove much from it. After all, one could in theory
require eating enough cracker-matzah so that it would compress to a
kezayis. They would still use the term "afilu hi rakah va'asuyah kisfug"
because that's the jargon since before the norm switched.

The issue here is really proving that a change in norm doesn't
automatically mean the establishment of a minhag against the new norm.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is complex.
micha at aishdas.org                Decisions are complex.
http://www.aishdas.org               The Torah is complex.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                                - R' Binyamin Hecht