[Avodah] RMF Mattir Neder Gebrochts

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Mon, May 02, 2016 at 12:38:35PM +1000, Isaac Balbin via Avodah wrote:
: Mori V'Rabbi R' Hershel Schachter advised me as follows: (emphasis is mine)
: "what I said was that there never was a minhag for Ashkenazim not to
: eat soft matzot....
: he is not the baal ha'neder. I was told that R.Tuvia Goldstein used to
: say that the whole minhag against eating gebrokts only made sense years
: ago when the matzohs were much thicker...."

Why quote RTG when the Pischei Teshuvah said it first?

OTOH, in the same generation, the SA haRav says that gebrochts only makes
sense *after* we started counting kneading time toward the 18 min. And as
a pragmatic matter, they both were very likely part of the same change
in matzah-making norms. (If you have less time to bake matzos now that
kneading ate up some of the time, you need thinner matzos.)

I know I'm repeating myself; it just makes me wonder about the PT's
theory. It is very likely the SA haRav is correct in timing, if not
causality (it could be post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning) because
the Besh"t ate keneidelach and yet chassidim two generations later --
their generation -- did not. The PT holds it was an old minhag that is
no longer applicable; but given those stories about the Besh"t, how old
could the minhag have been?

And if so, could RTG's theory be correct even in our day?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 9th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer.
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