Shabbat ha-
Gadol 5768/
Lectures on
the weekly Torah reading by the faculty of
Yemenite
Matzah
Dr.
Aharon
Gimani
Department of Jewish History
Combined Program in Jewish Studies
Throughout its existence
in the Diaspora, the Yemenite Jewish community baked thin soft
matzahs on the eve of the Passover holiday for use at the
Seder, during the festival, and for everyday eating.
An emissary on behalf of the
Kol Yisrael
Haverim organization (Alliance Israelite
Universelle), Yom Tov
Tzemah, visited
What a vast
differences between these matzahs and the coarse,
heavy, indigestible and tasteless matzah that is made
in
Below we present two
examples of 19th-century rabbis from the
David
Nahmias
The Shadar
(Sheluhei de-
rabbanan, emissaries sent from the
I would not have had to write this, were it not for a certain incident that happened. Namely, in the year 132 (for documents, i.e. 5579 or 1819) Rabbi David Nahmias, an emissary from the Holy City, appeared in our holy community and was put up in the home of the notable dayyan and holy man of G-d, my rabbi and teacher Rabbi Joseph Karah, z”l. When they were setting the table, Rabbi David Nahmias made fun of us and cast doubt on our kashruth, saying that (Heaven forfend) we were eating hametz on Passover, since there were bubbles on the surface of the loaf, and this he said was the puffed up matzah of which Maharil wrote. Hence he did not want to eat.
In other words, Rabbi David Nahmias refused to eat the Yemenite Jews’ matzah because he thought the matzah which they made fell into the category of matzah which is puffed in the center, and such matzah is forbidden. Rabbi Nahmias erred in not understanding that Rema’s reference to “ matzah which is puffed in the middle” pertained to thick matzah, since when it is thick it might not be baked through thoroughly. With Yemenite matzah, however, the law of matzah which is puffed in the middle does not apply since the Yemenite Jews bake extremely thin matzahs, and the bubbly surface on the matzahs which they served were not an indication of it being “matzah which is puffed in the middle.” Regarding this Rabbi Mansura wrote:
In my humble opinion it seems to me that these words apply to their matzahs, which are one tefah thick … but according to our custom, there is no reason for apprehension, since if you take ten of the matzahs that we bake and pile them one on the other, the stack will still not be one tefah thick.
Rabbi Mansura criticized the way matzah was baked in the Land of Israel, in contrast to the way it was made in Yemen:
You should see our beautiful cool water, and such fast kneading, that even in your land it is not equaled. It is also baked speedily, in one minute. Not so in your land, for we have heard complaints that you bake an extremely thick loaf, without hearing the flames of the furnace, and that it remains stuck to the walls of the oven for a long time; hence one suspects that it is way too far away from the fire for it to be baked in the blink of an eye, as our bread is made.
Moreover, to refute the words of the aforementioned Rabbi David (meaning Rabbi David Nahmias), who boasted of the practice in his land and criticized the matzah-baking custom of Sanaa, it is written in the work of Rabbi Pri Hadash, par. 459, 2, that the practice in the holy city of Jerusalem is not proper, for their dough ferments, and there is no one who properly understands this (see the above reference to the Pri Hadash).
Rabbi Mansura wrote extensively about the care that the Jews of Yemen take in baking their matzah, and proved that Rabbi Nahmias was mistaken in his understanding of the law concerning matzah which was puffed up. [3]
Jacob Sapir
Forty years after the
visit by Rabbi Nahmias, another Shadar,
the traveler Rabbi Jacob Sapir, spent some time in
I asked him about the matzah and the Seder. “Do not be concerned,” he said to me, “eat a hot matzah with us, baked daily according to the custom of our ancestors. Do not worry about the kashruth, since they are not stale and thirty days old by Passover. Rabbis from Jerusalem have preceded you in seeing that our women are swift and very quick in making kosher matzah. Daily we eat a hot, fresh matzah, and the pleasure of the holiday is in none other than hot matzah. I asked, “Is it right to trust women in a matter that involves much trouble and concerns the prohibition of leaven? For it says, You shall safeguard the commandments.” “Let us be,” he answered, “and be not concerned about the custom of our ancestors. For we are very meticulous and careful and observe the commandments; so do not be so self-righteous.” Then he gave me three soft, fresh matzahs that he had made in his own home for the Seder, and said to me: “This is shmura matzah, made of the old crop, and you can make the blessing, ‘to eat matzah’ over them. For this year, most of the matzah has not been made with supervision from the moment the grain was harvested (because there has been severe famine in the country, and whatever wheat was available was used), and we observe the halakhah that one does not recite the benediction, ‘to eat matzah,’ over matzah that has not been watched over” (which for me was a new teaching). Since I had long known the man as a wise and devout person, learned in Torah, I trusted his words and said fine, we shall speak on the holiday. I accepted the matzah and went off.
Elsewhere in his book Rabbi Sapir noted the custom of the Jews of Yemen to make the blessing of eating matzah only over matzah that had been supervised from the moment of harvesting the grain. He wrote that he had seen an extensive discussion of this subject in Rabbi Yihye Salah’s book, noting that the custom of the Jews of Yemen follows Maimonides’ opinion. [5] On the eve of the Seder, Rabbi Sapir was a guest in the home of Joseph Tiri (apparently there was a scribal error in the name of the host, which should have been Tairi). He admired the version of the Haggadah which they used and the way it was read, as well as his personal reception by the hosting family. Regarding their version of the kiddush, he noted: “In their kiddush they recite a lovely, long liturgical poem, and anyone who sees it will attest that it is an ancient formulation, reflecting the elegant language of the members of the Great Assembly.” [6] This was a reference to the liturgical poem that begins with the words, “Terumah hivdilanu mi-kol am,” which is also found in the prayer book of Rabbi Saadiah Gaon. Regarding the matzah, he wrote: “I also enjoyed eating the matzah hot, soft and fresh, all through the festival.” [7]
To conclude, I would like to present a touching remark by Rabbi Jacob Sapir, who came from the Land of Israel, about his feelings on the Seder eve which he spent in Sanaa in the Diaspora, and on the sense of closeness he felt to his hosts:
In all my adventures
and pleasures I wept constantly (a reference to Lam.
Our parents had the good fortune to move to the land of Israel, where they and we, descendents of the rabbis of Yemen, live happily. May it be the Lord’s will that we live to see the fulfillment of Redemption and rejoice in the rebuilding of Jerusalem and restoration of the Lord’s worship, partaking of the sacrifices and Pascal offerings, speedily in our day, Amen.
[1] “
Masa Yom Tov
Tzemah le-Teiman,” translated
into Hebrew by A. Almaliah, in Y. Yishaiah
and Y Tzadok, eds., Shvut
Teiman, Tel Aviv 1948, p. 310.
[2] Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim, par. 461.8.
[3] For a
further discussion of this subject, see:
A. Gimani, “The Shadar
Rabbi David Nahmias and the Matzot
in
[4] Even
Sapir, 1866, pp. 88b-89a.
[5] Ibid.,
p. 101b; see also responsa Pe’ulat
Tzaddik by R. Yihye
Salah, Part ii, responsum
138.
[6] Ibid.,
p. 89a.
[7] Ibid.,
p. 89b.