[Avodah] Sfardi Psaq On Matza And Qvi`ath S`udah

[Chanoch (Ken) Bloom]

On Sun, 2012-04-01 at 08:44 -0600, Jay F Shachter wrote:
> >
> > But Sefardim say mezonos on normal matzos all year, and yet on
> > Pesach they elevate it to hamotzi and use it for the mitzvah as well
> > as for lechem mishneh
> >
> 
> implying, based on standard rules of construction, that they would not
> use it for lexem mishneh when it is not Passover.
> 
> I once had a Sfardi guest for Shabbath who did not accept my use of
> matza for lexem mishneh, so the abovementioned implication seems to be
> correct (at least, based on my N=1 sample size).  But then I read the
> responsum of `Ovadya Yosef that discusses the matter, and after
> reading it I could not understand my guest's conduct, and suspected
> that it was based on ignorance.  Yes, accordance to `Ovadya Yosef,
> matza, when not eaten on Passover, is mzonoth; but it is not spaghetti
> mzonoth, it is the kind of mzonoth over which one should recite
> hammotzi if it is used for qvi`ath s`udah.  This conclusion was not
> stated in his responsum, but I do not see how it can be avoided.

He does agree with that conclusion, but the exact requirements are for
keviat seudah are probably off topic for the teshuva. R' Ovadia holds
that in order to be koveah seduah on pat haba b'kisnin, one needs to eat
216 grams of pat haba b'kisnin (that's about 1/2 pound, I think that's 4
beitzim) and other foods eaten in the meal are not mitstaref as a part
of that shiur. (See Yalkut Yosef, siman 168.) So you have to eat quite a
lot of bread (or matzah) in addition to any other courses you eat to be
koveah seduah on pat haba b'kisnin. The shiur is essentially impossible
to reach unless you're at a pizza party (He holds pizza is hamotzi
anyway, so I'm not sure what you gain.)

There's a third halacha that Rav Ovadia holds that's also relevant.
Namely, the Beit Yosef's ruling is that bread made with mei periot is
pat haba b'kisnin if the taste of mei periot in the bread is noticable,
even if it's not the majority (which is what the Rema holds.)

These combination of these 3 halachot means that quite often Sepharadim
visiting an Ashkenazi household are more machmir about when to say
hamotzi than their Ashkenazi hosts. (And it can be quite inconvenient.)
If once simply changes the rules for keviat seudah, (like one Sephardi
rabbi I know who holds that other foods are mitstaref in the shiur) then
from a practical standpoint, the Sephardic laws of hamotzi become very
similar to the Ashkenazic laws of hamotzi.