[Avodah] If You Are Choshesh for GeBrochts You MUST be Choshesh that Youir Matza is Chamets

[Akiva Miller via Avodah]

R' Meir G. Rabi explained his logic:

> if one suggests that
> there is a possibility that
> some flour
> within [but not on the surface of] the Matza
> which is protected from the heat of the oven
> and does not become baked
> [as once it is baked, flour can not become Chamets]
> then the Chashash that this flour
> might become Chamets if it becomes wet
> pales into insignificance
> and is completely eclipsed by the much greater risk
> that the middle part of the Matza
> which may not have been baked
> may actually be Chamets [Gamur]

I do not follow this logic. He is comparing two distinctly different
risks. For simplicity, I'd like to call one risk "insufficiently
kneaded" and the other one "insufficiently baked".

"Insufficiently kneaded" means that there might be some flour in the
middle of the matza that never got wet and is still plain raw flour,
and that if it gets wet it will become chometz. "Insufficiently baked"
means that there is some dough in the middle of the matza that did not
get baked, and it is already chometz. And RMGR feels that the second
of these is a "much greater risk".

I don't know where he gets the statistics to say that "insufficiently
kneaded" is a small risk (his words are "pales into insignificance"),
and that "insufficiently baked" is a "much greater risk".

Personally, my opinion is that *IF* one checks his matzos to be sure
that they are uniformly thin, *AND* checks to be sure that they have
none of the kefulos or other problems that halacha warns us about,
then he can be confident that no part of the matza was insufficiently
baked, and they are NOT chometz. Thus, there are steps that the
consumer can take to minimize the risk that his matzos were
insufficiently baked.

In contrast, I don't know of any way that the consumer can check the
matzos to verify that they were kneaded well enough; who knows if
there might be a few particles of flour that never got wet? I guess
the consumer has to rely on the manufacturer and hechsher to insure
that they are doing a good enough job of kneading the dough.

Anyway, my main point is that these two risks are distinct from each
other. I don't see any logical connection between them. From the way
he worded the subject line, it sounds like RMGR is making a "kal
vachomer", that if one is worried about one of the risks, then he must
certainly worry about the other one, but I don't see that. (In fact, I
can't even figure out which risk he feels leads to the other.)

Akiva Miller