פרשת צו-פסח

How Hard Could it be to Make a Sandwich?

There are many opinions on how the sandwichכורך  should be made, put together, and eaten.

 מהו דתימאthat all you need to do  is take two pieces of מצה  and throw in some old junk to remember when we left Mitzrayim.  קמ״ל it isn't so simple. Inבמדבר פרק ט פסוק יא  it says על מצות ומרורים יאכלוהו  which means on מצה  and  מרור we should eat it. The word "it" is referring to the קרבן פסח.

There are millions of opinions on how we are supposed to make and eat the sandwich. If you look in  מסכת פסחים then you will find on ,דף קטו  page 115, opinions how the sandwich should be built. The  גמרא talks about how הלל  ate the sandwich.  רש״י says that included פסח, מצה, ומרור  and so should we.

According to the  רמב״ם instead of the  קרבן פסח he thinks that  הלל had  חרוסת in his sandwich, and because of that we should too. The ברכה  on  כרך is ברוך אתה ה׳ אלוקינו מלך העולם אשר קדשנו במצותיו וציונו על אכילת מצות ומרורים. Later on we say the ברכה  ברוך אתה ה' אלוקינו מלך העולם אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו על אכילת הזבח  -.This shows that כורך and the קרבן פסח  are separate ideas and they should not be combined because wouldn't we say the ברכה of קרבן פסח during כרך because that is when we eat it first?

According toרביננו חננאל  the מרור  should be physically mixed with מצה also,  הגדת מועדים וזמנים have the same opinion. 

We think that in the sandwich there should be פסח, מצה, מרור  because that is what is said in the פסוק.

Since there is no קרבן פסח  now, we think that the sandwich should just be מצה ומרור  not חרסת.

In  ערוך השולחן,סימן תע"ה, סק"ז it says that we need to split מצה  into two pieces and put מרור  in between. In our opinion this is to make a closed traditional sandwich.

There are some opinions that discuss if the sandwich should be open or closed. רש״י  says that the כורך  needs to be an open sandwich. On the contrary רמב״ם  in thinks the sandwich should be closed. In רשב״םs commentary on the גמרא it seems that he thinks it needs to be open. However, it says מצה in parenthesis which shows that he actually thinks it needs to be closed. The opinion of group is the same of theרמב״ם .

 How should it be eaten?הלל  the creator of the sandwich ate it in one bite because it says in

במדבר פרק ט פסוק יא, על מצות ומרורים יאכלוהו.  which means, onמצה  and  מרור we should eat it. הלל  interpreted the word יאכלוהו  as you should eat the sandwich at once. How much מצה  and  מרור should be in your sandwich? The answer is כזית מצה וכזית מרור .

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Amichai Citron, Daniella Shlagbaum, and Omer Benharush