Matzo: Not for Passover use?
So I'm happily crunching on some matzo at lunch with Julie today when we realize that the box of matzo we are eating out of is marked "NOT FOR PASSOVER USE." What kind of matzo isn't for passover?
This is apparently a common enough problem that the chief Rabbi at Manischewitz, the title implies that there are more than one rabbi in the exclusive employ of the Jewish food giant, has responded thusly to the question "What does 'Not for Passover Use' mean?"
This product is not suited for use on Passover and may also be considered "Chometz". Ask your local Rabbi for further information on this topic.
Thanks Rabbi Horowitz, that really helped.... I mean, it didn't help at all! My confusion is compounded by the next question on his little Ask the Rabbi page:
If Passover supervision is to ensure there is no leavening why are leavening agents added to some of our Kosher for Passover products? The criteria for leavening used in Kosher for Passover supervision is one set by the Rabbis. In their opinion, leavening agents added to a matzo meal product does not constitute leavening.
Sure guy, whatever you say.
Putting the leavening paradox aside, I decide to investigate the problem further. The tainted matzo in question was purchased in the Passover section of a grocery store and was produced by the venerable Streit's corporation of New York, New York. Their web site was of no use in my quest for answer to this question.
Turning to Google answered my question a little. According to Aharon's Jewish Books and Judaica of Denver, Colorado:
Matzah used all year-round is not for Passover use. Only matzah bake especially for Passover may be sued on Passover.
Despite their unfortunate typo, this helps but still doesn't make much sense. Is the intention of the preparer what is at issue here? Did Streit's decide that my matzo wasn't for Passover and therefore it isn't or are the ingredients different?
What differentiates matzo from bread is that the dough is not permitted to remain inactive for more than eighteen minutes once it gets wet. Shmura matzo is a special kind of matzo where the grain is strictly supervised from the time it is harvested but still falls under the eighteen minute rule.
Here's where I'm confused. In order to be matzo the dough must not be allowed to sit for more than eighteen minutes. If this is what makes it kosher for passover and is the definition of matzo how is not for Passover matzo possible?
Can anyone help me with this question?
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Who is this guy?
In case anyone else is interested, I have included my notes to Sam:
I am delighted to put my obscure matzah training to use.
First, is your matzah egg matzah? Egg matzah is not kosher for passover except for the ill and elderly because you're adding egg to the matzah and it should be just flour and water, but for ill and old people they could use the extra nutrition. I think also little kids can eat egg matzah for passover.
Secondly, in order for matzah to be kosher for passover, or any food for that matter, it needs to be made on equiptment that has been thoroughly cleaned of all grain product/hametz and kashered according to Jewish law, with boiling water and other stuff (this whole process is where I get a little fuzzy because you do different things to different materials, metal, glass, etc.) SO, it is possible that although the matzah factory is likely kosher for passover all year round cuz what else would they be making on the matzah making equiptment, it hasn't been thoroughly cleaned and kashered again this year, and so only matzah made after this kashering process for this year is kosher for passover for this year. Because maybe someone who was working in the factory brought in a sandwich, etc. You also have to do a special little blessing and run around your home/business with a candle to find any remaining hametz, of which you have conspicuously left a little for the purpose of being found during this process so that you didn't make a blessing about finding hametz in vain. Then the next morning you burn it. What I didn't know was that in Jerusalem, there are these huge pyres of bread going up in flames the morning before Passover starts, so stupid me I stayed in bed and missed what must be a really interesting sight.
Thirdly, matzah is just a cracker. You could take 18 minutes to make it, you could take 22 minutes to make it, you could take 5 minutes to make it. What makes matzah kosher for passover is that it did not take more than 18:00 minutes to make (note that it is not _sitting_ for 18 minutes)*. It may be that they are not as careful about the 18 minutes during the rest of the year's production run, or it may simply be that they are but they do not have an authority watching the process and making sure. Because why pay an extra person when you don't need to? Matzah goes stale as much as the next product, so only for the short run that affects Passover do they need to be extra careful.
Fourthly, here is the answer to the matzah meal mystery about leavening agents: it's called gebratz, or something like that. Which is the process of adding water, egg, anything else to matzah during passover to make it soft and usable. Some people say that this is like leavening it again and so they don't do it. The rest of us enjoy our matzah brie and our matzah "rolls" and our matzah meal covered fish etc.
"If Passover supervision is to ensure there is no leavening why are leavening agents added to some of our Kosher for Passover products? The criteria for leavening used in Kosher for Passover supervision is one set by the Rabbis. In their opinion, leavening agents added to a matzo meal product does not constitute leavening."
That last part sounds to me like they are refering to adding water or egg or something to the matzah meal or matzah after you buy it. But the first part sounds kind of like it's in their factory. Did this passage come from a kosher for passover product that was not matzah sheets but rather some kind of matzah concoction like a fake cake?
*I went to a matzah factory last week in Meah Sharim, the most religious neighborhood in Jerusalem, to watch them make the matzah. They had a digital timer on the wall counting down 18 minutes, guys in an adjacent room furiously mixing dough, and two tables of ultra-orthodox guys padding balls of dough into matzah sheets. There was a foreman at the front cutting the logs of dough into balls, and when the sheets were flat they all tossed them down to a table running perpendicular at the end, from which they were lifted and put in the oven. Every 18 minutes the process stopped, all dough was thrown out, and the process started again by the relief team. So it's 18 min start to finish, not that you wait 18 minutes for something to happen to the matzah.
Sam & Julie-Being a 2001 convert to Judaism who hasn't even set foot inside a synagogue in 2 years, I know almost nothing about matzo except that I like to eat it, and especially with charoset--in fact, the "Hillel sandwich" is my favorite seder food item. But I do want to wish you & Julie a very happy Pesach, anyway. And good luck finding more answers to the mystery of the "Kosher for Passover-or not" matzo.
Julia - the only two distinctly labeled Kosher for Passover matzohs that we could find at the regular grocery store (and yes, they said Kosher for Passover 2006) were wheat matzoh and EGG matzoh. If we're not supposed to be eating that stuff, the Jewish food production industry is sure making the whole thing a lot damn harder on it's own people than even makes sense. Are you sure about the egg thing? I mean, if it weren't for normal consumption during passover, shouldn't they mark the box, they way they mark passover matzoh as only for passover?
So someone now told me that the egg matzah thing is only that you shouldn't use egg matzah at the seder but eating it other times is okay; I have yet to do more research into it and am mostly reporting back what I have gathered. (Note: no one reading should make halachic decisions based on my suppositions.) The wheat thing should be totally fine. It's still a little of a mystery about your matzah. Were you at a regular supermarket or one of the ones on Pico? The Pico ones should have been stocked with totally kosher for passover matzot knowing the neighborhood. The Jewish food industry is run by politics and a taste of corruption with your gefilte fish, so I think it's safe to say that it doesn't make much sense.
Also, the leavened matzah thing is called gebrachtz.