[Avodah] kezayit

Kenneth Miller via Avodah avodah at lists.aishdas.org
Fri Apr 3 14:17:19 PDT 2015


R' David Wacholder posted:

> Every average person's swallow is a Kezayit, the amount which
> fulfils the Mitzvah and is the measure for the Bracha on Achilas
> Matza. As a Hidur and to erase all doubt, a second normal swallow
> would be good. That is for Motzi-Matzah, where the first olive-
> size swallowed fulfils a Torah obligation.
> ...
> This needs no authority to base it on. ...

WHY would it need no authority to base it on? If this were the halacha, wouldn't someone have mentioned it? Why did so many authorities struggle with the math and the biology and the physics if such a simple solution were at hand?

> Air pockets and weight issue
>
> The swallow size may be according the the air pockets normally
> contained in Matzo, not ground, and according to volume not weight.

If a kezayis is a swallowfull, aren't the air pockets gone? Haven't they been lost in the chewing?

I concede that by the time the chewed matza gets to the throat, much of the missing air has been replaced by saliva. Or perhaps the saliva even *more* than accounts for the missing air. I am not knowledgeable enough about this to venture a guess on the comparison of the volume of the matza before chewing vis a vis at swallowing.

In any case, I've always been bothered by the problem of counting the air bubbles. Mishneh Berurah 208:48 says that when eating cookies, l'chatchilah, one must insure that he ate a kezayis of flour, WITHOUT counting the sugar, in order to say Al Hamichya. MB concedes that the minhag is to count all the ingrdients, but the Igros Moshe 1:71 says not to rely on that minhag. So here's my question: If they would prefer us NOT to count the other ingredients, which have substance, isn't it a simple kal vachomer not to count AIR, she'ayn bo mamash?

Akiva Miller
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