One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
חמץ ומצה
Chametz u'Matzah, Chapter 6
Sefer Zemanim · The mitzvah of eating matzah on the night of the fifteenth: what counts, whose bread qualifies, and how to come to it hungry
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NIGHT OF NISAN: THE ONE OBLIGATION
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GRAIN SPECIES THAT CAN LEAVEN
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OLIVE-SIZE FULFILLS THE MITZVAH
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FOODS EATEN AFTER THE AFIKOMAN
6:1-3The Obligation Itself
- A mitzvah in its own right. Eating matzah on the night of the fifteenth is a Torah command in every place and at every time, independent of the Paschal sacrifice; the rest of Pesach, matzah is optional - rice, millet, seeds, or fruit are all fine (6:1)
- One olive-size. Eating a kezayit any time during the night fulfills the obligation (6:1)
- Swallowed whole still counts. Matzah swallowed without chewing fulfills the mitzvah; maror swallowed without tasting does not - bitterness must be tasted. Matzah and maror swallowed together: matzah yes, maror no. Wrapped in fibers and swallowed: not even the matzah (6:2)
- Intention is not required. One forced by gentiles or thieves to eat matzah fulfills the obligation; one who ate during a seizure, outside the reach of mitzvot, must eat again after recovering (6:3)
RememberMatzah works even untasted and unintended - but maror unfelt is unfulfilled.
6:4-6What Counts as Matzah
- Only what can leaven. Only the five grain species qualify; rice, millet, and kitniyot can never become chametz - they spoil - so they can never be matzah (6:4)
- Poor man's bread. Dough kneaded with fruit juice qualifies, but kneaded with wine, oil, honey, or milk it does not - the Torah requires lechem oni. Very fine flour is fine; pure bran is not, though flour with its bran mixed back in works (6:5)
- Dog dough. Dough made for dogs counts only if the shepherds also eat from it; otherwise it was never watched for the sake of the mitzvah (6:5)
- Oven, pot, or ground. Matzah baked in an oven, a roasting pot, or even in the ground qualifies; underbaked matzah counts once no strands of dough pull from it when broken. Baked then soaked works so long as it has not dissolved; cooked matzah never - it has lost the taste of bread (6:6)
RememberMatzah is made of the grain that could have risen and did not - what cannot leaven cannot be matzah.
6:7-9Whose Bread May Serve
- Forbidden bread fails. Matzah of tevel, of first tithe whose terumah was not separated, or stolen matzah cannot fulfill the mitzvah (6:7)
- The governing rule. Any matzah over which grace after meals may be recited can serve; if grace may not be said on it, it cannot (6:7)
- Sacred produce. Kohanim fulfill the mitzvah with matzah of challah or terumah even though not everyone may eat it; matzah of ma'aser sheni serves in Jerusalem (6:8)
- Watched for what? Loaves of a thanksgiving offering or a nazirite's cakes made for one's own sacrifice cannot serve - they were watched for the sacrifice, not for the mitzvah of matzah (6:9)
RememberIf you cannot bless after it, you cannot fulfill with it.
6:10-12Everyone, and the Appetite
- All are obligated. Women and slaves are fully obligated; a child old enough to eat bread is trained with an olive-size. A sick or elderly person may be fed matzah soaked in water, provided it has not dissolved (6:10)
- The last taste. By Rabbinic ordinance nothing at all is eaten after the final matzah - not even roasted seeds or nuts - so its taste ends the night (6:11)
- No matzah on Pesach eve. Eating matzah on the fourteenth is forbidden and punished with stripes for rebellion, to mark the line between eating and mitzvah (6:12)
- Come hungry. From slightly before minchah on Pesach eve no meal is eaten; fruit and vegetables are permitted but not to fill up. The early Sages would starve themselves so as to eat the matzah with appetite (6:12)
RememberThe mitzvah is guarded on both sides: no matzah the day before, nothing at all after.