Wednesday, March 30, 2011
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A blog dedicated to examining the economic and auxilary issues in the Orthodox community. A blog for those who value self-reliance , promotion of prosperity, and integrity. Reader input and guest posts are much appreciated. So please add your comments and email guest posts or items of interest to Orthonomics at gmail dot com.
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15 comments:
This seems like a great price. We use machine shmura ourselves, but I have noticed that my friends and relatives who are hand shmura users are mostly very particular about their brands and try to get the same brand year after year - would your hand shmura readers switch brands to save money?
Will y'all kill me if I told you I got the same Israeli hand shmurah for $13.99 in Chicago at Jewel-Osco?
A note on quality:
We look for brands that don't come cracked after shipping long distances to the store. Condition of the matzos doesn't seem to correlate with price or where they are made. It depends largely on the producer's quality assurance system and packaging method. Also, some producers have opted to make their hand matzos thinner to be more easily chewed, but this can also make them more subject to major breakage in transit.
As Anon1 said there are real differences in the quality of hand shmurah and "chew" differences as well. In 33 years of making Pesach we've basically stuck with only two brands. When the first one was no longer being made we found the second one and we stick with it. We sampled a few other brands but didn't like them. So to answer Tesyaa's question, yes, we buy the brand we prefer regardless of price. Cheaper isn't really cheaper if no one will eat the shmurah or if a large percentage of it is cracked and cannot be used for a motzi. We adjust the budget elsewhere to account for the shmurah matzah cost. Worth it to us, and that's really what matters.
To tesyaa, the last time we spent $$ on hand shmura, we didn't have 6 whole matzohs for the seder out of 2 pounds. Yesterday we found a pound of machine shmura for $7. We'll check it out before the seder.
Since most people agree that hand shmura is halachically unnecessary, I completely understand that some people will pay extra for their preferred brand. If you're already paying double for hand matzah, and you don't like the taste or texture, why not buy what you like?
I'd actually be surprised if people decided to economize by buying a brand of hand shmura they didn't like. Again, most agree it's not a necessity, so most use it for reasons of taste or tradition. How can you perpetuate a tradition with something you don't enjoy, just to save a few dollars?
I also buy the brand we prefer.
btw, this coupon deal is already sold out.
Last year after Pesach our Rav gave a short shiur on how to identify whole matza suitable for hamotzi on shabbos and yom tov. He noticed that during Pesach he seemed to always have many more "whole" matzas than the people around him who complained about having hardly any.
Since I have a mind like a sieve :-) I don't remember what he said, but something about a very tiny piece cracked off did not nullify the "whole" status of the matza. There may be other pertinent details to this.
Before you start lamenting the fact that you only have a few shmura matzos to use for hamotzi it may be worth asking your Rav to review the halachos of wholeness.
Hopefully he will review those halachos in shul this year BEFORE Pesach.
And if you spend the Sedarim complaining about the "rip off" of the Shmura Matza, and how it's all a rackets, then rethink if there isn't a slightly better way to elevate the Mitzvot than expensive Matza that you complain about.
If you don't complain about it, this does not apply to you. However, that caveat also included an If, and I've noticed that people on Jewish blogs don't seem to understand Modus Ponens/IF-THEN logic.
My family, generally, prefers Shatzer, though there is another brand that begins with a K that also has the thin, crispness they like. One year I bought a cheap one for $10 a lb; it was not at all a hit. As we only need hand shmura for the sedarim, I don't need to buy a great deal of it.
It is true that some posekim do not permit machine made shmura for the seder. But anyone who has supervised matzah factories of both types will tell you that the kashrut of modern machine made matzah is superior. So being machmir for the opinion of those who require hand made matzah is a chumrah ha-ba l'dei kula.
The primary source for the stringency seems to be a ruling of the author of Divrei Chaim, R. Chaim Halberstam of Sanz. He explicitly declined to offer his reason. His descendant, R. Yitzchock Halberstam, with whom I once carpooled, reported a family tradition that this was to protect the income of the matzah bakers. If so, it seems to me, the whole question should be revisited in a modern economic context.
His descendant, R. Yitzchock Halberstam, with whom I once carpooled, reported a family tradition that this was to protect the income of the matzah bakers. If so, it seems to me, the whole question should be revisited in a modern economic context.
Mike S., if we revisit all Jewish customs and practices that have questionable antecedents, we will very likely end up with a religion that is nothing like the one we know today.
there were some litvishe RY who DID NOT ALLOW hand matzoh at their table. Yes, you heard me right. It is not 'chumrah' versus 'kula'. here. Diff strokes for diff folks is all. Within hand matzoh there are different levels too; and I am sure there are hand matzoh eaters who think the hand matzoh I eat is not good.
matzo man,
can you name the litvishe RY?
Rabbi Gifter was one of them
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