The Blessing on Baked Goods - Rabbi Menachem Mendel Vilshansky shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lema’an Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 So, as promised, with Hashem’s help we need to learn about mezonos foods: cakes, cookies, and breads. We’ve already explained at length which ones require the blessing Hamotzi. But when I eat mezonos foods—cookies, biscuits, cakes—can I eat as much as I like and say Mezonos? We said that when it becomes a set meal, the blessing must be Hamotzi. What counts as a set meal? Does it depend on how much makes me full? What if an amount would fill everyone else, but not me, because I can eat a bit more or because I’m very hungry? So what are the measurements and quantities that call for Mezonos, and what calls for Hamotzi—and sometimes the blessing Al Netilas Yadayim, and of course Birkas Hamazon afterward? Well, up to 228 or 230 grams—we really should be speaking in terms of volume, as we said, but about a hundred years ago the rabbis of Jerusalem and Eretz Yisroel calculated it in these measurements, partly to make things easier for us, so we’ll follow that approach. Up to 230 grams, which is four egg-sized measures—and I’ll explain: four times 56 or 57 grams—I say Mezonos. But if that makes me full, I have to go and get some other bread, because people generally don’t become full from less than 230 grams. If I do become full from it, I need to get a kezayis of actual bread, bread that by all opinions and according to halacha requires Hamotzi, wash my hands for it, say Hamotzi, and check that the bread together with the cookies amounts to 57 grams—an egg-sized measure. Then I may say Al Netilas Yadayim, which we say only for

02:12 Speaker 2 an egg-sized amount. After eating, I say Birkas Hamazon as a Torah obligation, because I ate a kezayis of bread. A kezayis of bread requires Birkas Hamazon. The Sages—the Sages actually added the kezayis requirement, but this becomes a Torah-level obligation, and I say Birkas Hamazon. How wonderful! But what if I’m so hungry that even 230 grams won’t make me full? No problem. Up to six egg-sized measures—56 or 57 grams times six, which is about 350 grams—eat freely. Eat as much as you like within that amount if it doesn’t make you full, and say Borei Minei Mezonos and Al Hamichyah. For someone who isn’t full, that isn’t a set meal. For a meal to be considered a set meal that requires Hamotzi, sometimes the amount has to be considered together with how much it takes to make you full. If you haven’t become full, something is missing from its status as a set meal—there’s no sense of sitting down to a satisfying meal. So if up to 350 grams doesn’t make you full, say Borei Minei Mezonos and Al Hamichyah. If it’s less than 230 grams and you do become full, we’ve already said that you should wash for other bread. What if I eat 228 or 230 grams or more, and it does make me full? We said that up to six egg-sized measures, if you’re not full, you say Borei Minei Mezonos. But if four egg-sized measures do make you full, you can wash for it and say Al Netilas Yadayim, Hamotzi, and Birkas Hamazon. How wonderful! Why look for ways to avoid blessings? After all, they say, “Grab and eat, grab and drink.” Before Moshiach comes, we need to grab every mitzvah we can. How wonderful to grab the opportunity to say Birkas Hamazon, a mitzvah with so much in it—five blessings, five blessings. Grab and eat, grab

04:18 Speaker 2 and drink, so you’ll have something to say a blessing over. That’s the real grabbing: grabbing mitzvos. So if it makes you full, say Hamotzi over it. If it doesn’t make you full, we said that up to 350 grams you say Borei Minei Mezonos. But if 230 to 350 grams does make you full, say Hamotzi and Birkas Hamazon. What if I have 250 grams, 260 grams, or 230 grams of dough-based food, and it doesn’t make me full? We said to say Mezonos over it, right? But suppose that inside those mezonos rolls weighing 230 grams, or inside the mezonos biscuits, I’ve put fish schnitzel, chicken schnitzel, vegetables, eggs, or tuna, and now the meal will make me full. Pay attention: I’m eating less than 350 grams of dough. I’m eating more than 230 grams of dough, but together with the accompaniments and fillings, it satisfies me. Yes, no problem: say Hamotzi and Birkas Hamazon. Say there’s a pizza in which the flour and milk weigh 230 grams. Without the cheese you won’t be full, but with the cheese you will be. Or suppose the pizza has 230 grams—and I’m talking about mezonos dough—with cheese on top, and that still doesn’t make you full. But add some mushrooms, vegetables, and tomatoes, and now you’ll be full. Excellent. You can wash for it and say the blessings. If there are 230 grams of dough, plus toppings that together make me full, wash your hands for it. Say Al Netilas Yadayim and Hamotzi, and Birkas Hamazon at the end. We haven’t yet discussed pizza—whether perhaps one should be stringent and eat it as part of a meal or wash for other bread. A conscientious

06:25 Speaker 2 person might be stringent, or might not. I haven’t discussed that. Right now I’m talking about those who are lenient and treat pizza, too, as ordinary mezonos. We’ll discuss the actual halacha of pizza dough later. A good tip: you’re traveling on a plane. That’s very common. You know it’s hard to wash your hands there; otherwise, grab the opportunity and eat! How wonderful—why avoid washing your hands? But you know that on the plane, if you eat the whole tray together with the roll, you’ll be full. You’re entering into a doubt concerning a Torah obligation. You become obligated to say Birkas Hamazon, and if you say Al Hamichyah, you may be failing to fulfill a Torah obligation. What should you do? Here’s a good tip: instead of first eating the roll—sorry, the accompaniments or vegetables around it, all the side dishes, the omelet, the meat, or the fish—and then eating the roll on a full stomach, so that you become full from it and face a Torah-level problem, do the opposite. Eat the roll first. Usually the roll doesn’t weigh 350 grams, and sometimes it’s even less than four egg-sized measures, less than 230 grams. Eat it on an empty stomach. That small roll on the plane won’t make you full. Now you can eat all the accompaniments separately from the roll, and they make you full. There’s no halachic question. You can say Al Hamichyah and Borei Nefashos afterward. But if you take the roll and put all the fillings inside it, you’ll have a problem. If that makes you full and the roll is less than 230 grams, you’ll need to wash for other bread. If it’s more than 230 grams, then you have a problem, because together it will make you full. And if you’re not full, then you need to wash for it. Sorry, if you’re not full, you

08:24 Speaker 2 You can indeed say Borei Minei Mezonos over it, but if it fills you up, you enter a situation of doubt involving a Torah obligation. So make sure to eat the roll at the beginning and the rest at the end. Let me summarize: up to 350 cc—350 grams, converting it to grams—you can eat as much mezonos as you like if it does not fill you up. If it does fill you up, and the amount is up to four eggs’ volume, wash your hands for other bread. If it does not fill you up, say Borei Minei Mezonos. From four eggs’ volume, from 230 grams to 350 grams, if the rolls fill you up—even if it is the rolls weighing 230 grams together with what you eat alongside them that fill you up—wash your hands, say Hamotzi, and say Birkas Hamazon. There is our very brief summary of the laws of biscuits. So we asked at the beginning: what do you do with a package of mezonos? I deliberately do not say wafers, because wafers are a separate discussion. They contain a truly tiny amount of flour; the rest is oil, then margarine and chocolate. But if a package of mezonos says 250 grams and it does not fill you up, go ahead and eat it. You can eat up to 350 grams. The same applies to all kinds of baked mezonos. If it is a baked type of Bissli, the limit is 350 grams. If it is cooked or fried, we will discuss that later. You can eat up to 350 grams without a problem if it does not fill you up. If it does fill you up, as we said, up to 230 grams, wash your hands for other bread. From 230 to 350 grams, if it fills you up, you can wash your hands for it and say Hamotzi. From 350 grams upward, if you are not

10:11 Speaker 2 full, you must always take other bread—an olive-sized portion of other bread—and wash your hands for it, because most people would be filled up by that amount. For most people, it counts as establishing a meal. So take an olive-sized portion of bread, wash your hands for it and eat it; eat the mezonos during that meal, and then you can eat as much of it as you like. When you reach 1,244 cc—1,244 grams—which is already approaching the amount that requires separating challah, some opinions even require separating challah from it. This is called half an issaron: 1,244, half an issaron. And you come along and say, “I’m so hungry,” or “I can eat a great deal of baked goods without becoming full.” It makes no difference. An individual’s opinion is disregarded in the face of everyone else’s. This is the amount that establishes a meal for most people, so you too can and should wash your hands for it and say Hamotzi. From 1,244 grams onward, then, there is no question: we always wash our hands and say Hamotzi over it. From six eggs’ volume—350 grams—to 1,244 grams: if it does not fill you up, wash your hands for other bread; if it does, wash your hands for the mezonos itself. From four to six eggs’ volume: if it does not fill you up, as we said, eat it and say Mezonos over it as you like. If it does fill you up, wash your hands for it and say Hamotzi. Less than four eggs’ volume: if it does not fill you up, say Mezonos; if it does, first wash your hands for other bread. That sums it up. Just one final point: there is a brief discussion about four eggs’ volume together with food eaten alongside it. In one place, the Alter Rebbe says that the flour—that is, the dough—need not amount to four eggs’ volume with the accompanying food making you full. Rather, the amount of dough can be less than four eggs’ volume; the main thing is that the accompanying food fills you up, and that together with it the amount exceeds four eggs’ volume. That is not how most people understand it—

12:08 Speaker 2 most of the rabbis I have met, or whose writings I have read, maintain that to say Hamotzi and Birkas Hamazon over bread eaten with other food when I am full, the dough must always be at least 230 grams, or [unclear] grams, with the accompanying food added to that. As mentioned, some argue otherwise, but we did not go into that because it does not appear in the books and rulings of the Chabad rabbis as they understood the Alter Rebbe’s words. It can be argued either way. What we have not discussed—and still need to discuss—is the main question of what counts as Mezonos and what counts as Hamotzi. What counts as Hamotzi has already been studied at length. But which kinds of cake should I consider Mezonos? Everyone knows that the Alter Rebbe says that with certain kinds of Mezonos, a conscientious person should be stringent. Which ones? We also still need to talk about fried dough, and about bread that has been crumbled or has softened and dissolved. We will discuss these and more as we continue, with Hashem’s help. Now, the Alter Rebbe mentions two types of Mezonos in his Luach—in his laws of blessings over food—although in the Shulchan Aruch there are three types. In the Shulchan Aruch, he lists a particular type that a person crunches, known as kesisah. Various kinds of crackers are similar to it. Matzah is a type of food one crunches, and the Shulchan Aruch says that its blessing is Mezonos. The Alter Rebbe omitted this entirely. Some say the Alter Rebbe omitted it because he holds that the blessing over crackers and matzah is Hamotzi. Others say he omitted it not because he holds that the blessing is Hamotzi, but because they are definitely Mezonos. There is nothing to debate, and they are lenient about all crackers.

14:11 Speaker 2 Some say these foods were not common in the Alter Rebbe’s time, so he did not write about them, but their blessing might indeed be Mezonos. Others say they were common in his time and he nevertheless omitted them, indicating that their blessing is Hamotzi. Either way, this remains unresolved. This issue has not been settled, and from the rulings I have seen—at least those of the rabbis I studied under—they are stringent about these foods. But there are kinds of crackers and other baked goods, apart from matzah, whose blessing is Hamotzi, that we will discuss in light of the other categories of baked goods. That is, there are two other types of baked goods that we will now explain, and we can also use them to assess various kinds of biscuits and crackers. As mentioned, the Alter Rebbe presents two types in his laws of blessings over food. The first is dough kneaded not with just flour and water, but with flour and fruit juice, milk, honey, and the like, with or without water. That is one type of dough. Regarding this type, the Alter Rebbe says that some dough has the blessing Hamotzi and some has the blessing Mezonos. And although some say that a particular kind of dough has the blessing Mezonos, a conscientious person should be stringent even with this kind and eat it during a meal, after saying Hamotzi. Let me repeat. Everyone knows that dough is made from flour and water. But here the flour was mixed with fruit juice, other juices, or eggs—the main thing is that it was not mixed with water. Or water was added, but only a small amount compared with the fruit juice, other juices, or eggs. We now have a dough about which the Alter Rebbe writes that according to one opinion its blessing is Mezonos, while according to the other it is Hamotzi. Therefore, every conscientious person should be stringent and eat it during a meal. Yes, cakes that have a base of layers of mezonos underneath

16:31 Speaker 2 They clearly fall into this category. Pizza falls into this category. Pizza is flour and milk. Sometimes people make pizza with flour and water. That is certainly hamotzi, especially if there is more water than milk. As soon as the water exceeds the milk, it is hamotzi according to all opinions. When the pizza dough has more milk than water, some say its blessing is mezonos, while others say this is what the Alter Rebbe meant when he said that a conscientious person should be stringent for himself. So with a dough that contains a minority of water and a majority of fruit juice, eggs, or anything else that is not water, the Alter Rebbe says its blessing is mezonos according to one opinion. There is a case the Alter Rebbe does not mention: what if there is more fruit juice than the flour and water combined? An overwhelming majority. The Alter Rebbe mentions something similar regarding honey cake, where there is a great deal of honey and the flour is a minority. I take that and say: the Alter Rebbe did not tell us explicitly what the law would be if there were a lot of margarine, eggs, sugar, or fruit juice, and only a little flour. He mentions it regarding honey. It may be that here the Alter Rebbe would say there is no disagreement. I don’t know. I have not seen an explicit discussion of it. What the Alter Rebbe explicitly addresses, as I said, is when the flour may be the majority, but the fruit juice exceeds the water, or there is no water at all. That is one type. A second type is pas haba’ah b’kisnin—kisnin, or kisnin. What is that? It is a pita. An actual pita. Not the pita we know, made of flour and water; that is hamotzi. They would make something like a pita from flour and water, but they would not bake it in the oven as it was. They would put all kinds of sweets inside it—candies, fruits, sweet things—and prepare it that way. They would bake it

18:51 Speaker 2 like that. It came out as real dough, an actual dough. But the dough was shaped like a pocket. Kisnin—a pocket, a pocket—and it held sweet things inside. This applies only to sweet things. In other words, if I take flour and water, make a pita, and put potatoes or fish inside, that is not pas haba’ah b’kisnin. Its blessing is hamotzi from the outset, because that is something people eat as food, as a meal. That is not what we are talking about. We are talking about something a person eats for pleasure and enjoyment, something people eat at gatherings as a sweet, like the things generally served at meals—either as dessert or even before the first course, before the meal begins. They set out a table of sweets and delicacies. We are talking about delicacies. If you have made pas haba’ah b’kisnin as a delicacy, its blessing is mezonos according to all opinions. In other words, there is no question here. This is not common today. But Rabbi Ashkenazi, a"h, the rabbi of Kfar Chabad, instructed the owner of the bagel shop that was once popular in Kfar Chabad: whenever he made bagels from flour and water—whether the water was a minority compared with the fruit juice, as it has to be for the bagel to be mezonos, or whether there was no water at all, only fruit juice—he told him, “Listen, I want to satisfy every opinion and resolve every doubt. When you make the dough, I want you to push into it those little square cubes you can buy nowadays.” Sometimes you find them in factories, and sometimes they are available only in bulk to factories. Little squares of things like dried papaya or other dried fruits. Push them into the dough at several

20:53 Speaker 2 points and turn the dough into pas haba’ah b’kisnin. It makes no difference whether it is a filled pocket, shaped like a sleeve, or round like a bagel—round like a bracelet. The main thing is that you have pushed sweet things into the dough. That is how Rabbi Ashkenazi made those bagels mezonos according to all opinions. There is something very interesting about bagels: I have heard testimony more than once, explicit testimony from Rabbi Groner, a"h, that the Rebbe ate bagels like the ones sold in Crown Heights. There was a bagel shop in Crown Heights. The Rebbe ate them with cheese and made the blessing mezonos. Now, when we look at a bagel, it is flour and water, but the water is a minority. Most of the liquid is fruit juice, and the Rebbe ate it with the blessing mezonos. We said earlier that some argue that a dough made with a little water, a lot of fruit juice, and flour—an actual dough that can be rolled out and shaped—is subject to a doubt. We said earlier that the Alter Rebbe says that even if the fruit juice exceeds the water, it is considered mezonos only according to one opinion, and a conscientious person should be stringent for himself. It is interesting that Rabbi Groner testifies that the Rebbe ate bagels with the blessing mezonos. So we make mezonos on those bagels. It may be that the reason was, as I said earlier, that they contained only fruit juice, and that it exceeded even the flour. That does not seem likely to me, judging by the shape of the bagels as I remember them. Maybe they also pushed some fruit into them. I don’t know. With bagels, we have testimony that the Rebbe ate a bagel with the blessing mezonos. For me, that makes it mezonos. Everyone should ask their own rabbi. I am telling you what I received as testimony; for me, that is enough—a precedent set by the Rebbe’s practice. Let us return now to the other mezonos foods. So we have understood from the Alter Rebbe that there are foods whose blessing is mezonos according to all opinions: pas

23:06 Speaker 2 haba’ah b’kisnin is mezonos according to all opinions. And there is the other type, dough made with fruit juice, other juices, eggs, and the like, which is mezonos according to one opinion. Fine. Let us discuss kinds of cakes we know. Take, for example, a cake made with a thick layer of dough, topped with cream or cheese—a cheesecake. Some cheesecakes are very, very soft and runny, without any dough at all. With others, they make a layer of dough on the bottom, from flour and water, sometimes with a lot of fruit juice as well. The water is a minority. They make a layer and put the cheese or cream on top. Yes, that is a cake whose blessing is subject to doubt, because you made a layer of dough at the bottom. It does contain fruit juice, of course, but it is still exactly the kind of doubtful dough the Alter Rebbe describes. Nevertheless, its blessing is mezonos according to one opinion. By contrast, if you make a runny cheesecake without that bottom layer, with flour mixed into it, as we will see, it may be mezonos according to all opinions. Now let me ask you about another case: what is the law regarding rugelach? Rugelach are made from actual dough. Sometimes it is flour and water; sometimes the amount of water is right on the borderline, one percent less than the fruit juice. And there is chocolate inside. How would you classify them? Many rabbis say, “Excuse me, rugelach? This is exactly the dough made with fruit juice that the Alter Rebbe says is subject to doubt.” But we have to remember that rugelach have another feature. Yes, it starts as dough; it becomes a dough, is rolled out, and is then baked. All well and good. But we rolled chocolate inside it. Chocolate is a sweet, a fruit made into a sweet. That is exactly pas haba’ah b’kisnin. It may be that there is no question at all that rugelach are mezonos, unless

25:14 Speaker 2 You eat an amount equivalent to four eggs or six eggs, and you become full. It may be that rugelach are mezonos according to all opinions. So we can take rugelach out of this discussion: rugelach are mezonos. This makes a very big practical difference, because the Alter Rebbe says that if there is a question about a cake and it is served as dessert at the end of a meal—pay attention: I’m sitting at a meal, cake is served for dessert, and the Alter Rebbe says it is better to eat dessert after Birkas Hamazon, but some people eat it before Birkas Hamazon—the Alter Rebbe says: “Any cake about which there is a question whether its blessing is Mezonos or Hamotzi, you do not make a blessing on it at the end of a meal.” If we’re talking about the layered cake we discussed earlier—not layers made with a soft batter; I mean actual layers of proper dough, as we mentioned with cheesecake, for example—according to one opinion in the Alter Rebbe, those cakes may require Hamotzi, so you cannot make a blessing on them at the end of a meal. But if I classify rugelach as pas haba’ah bekisnin, they are mezonos according to all opinions, and you can make a blessing on them at the end of the meal. Yes, so how I define rugelach makes a practical difference in halachah. But that’s not all; we have many other cakes to discuss. Just a moment: most cakes today are made from batter, mixed cakes. When the Alter Rebbe wants to mention a kind of mezonos about which there is no question at all, apart from pas haba’ah bekisnin, he says honey cake. Why? Honey cake is mostly honey, with a little flour, and it is made as a treat for pleasure. Notice that the Alter Rebbe gives us two reasons why honey cake is mezonos according to all opinions, unless one establishes a meal on it. First, it is mostly honey and has only a little flour. He is not talking about the proportion of water to honey. No: honey makes up the majority, and there is little flour.

27:10 Speaker 2 The flour makes it a little thicker, but it is still liquid like honey, and its main purpose is as a treat for pleasure. They make it—you can’t say they make it to eat as a meal. They make it to be sweet, zis. How does the Rebbe describe honey cake? Ziskait—something sweet; it puts a sweet taste in your mouth. Oh, a cake like that is mezonos according to all opinions. Even a particularly conscientious person does not need to be stringent about it. All the mixed cakes are similar to it. What’s more, some argue that since these cakes start out as liquid—and especially those rolled cakes everyone knows, with cream inside and a layer around it made with flour, chocolate or something else, which comes out very spongy, with a very thin, spongy layer that is rolled up—in that case, from the outset, they make the flour-and-water mixture as liquid as water. Most mixed cakes resemble honey cake in that they are mostly eggs and sugar, with little flour, and they are made as a treat for pleasure. And in the case of a rolled cake, the mixture is liquid and watery when it is made, so it may even have the status of something cooked rather than baked. For all these reasons, there is no question that the blessing on them is Mezonos, followed by Al Hamichyah, unless one establishes a meal on them. So, to sum up, the only problem left for us is pizza. If the pizza dough is made with milk, and milk makes up more of the liquid than water, then according to one opinion, the Alter Rebbe says its blessing is Mezonos. According to the other opinion, it is Hamotzi. According to the opinion that it is Mezonos, you can eat up to 230 grams if you do not become full—and, sorry, up to 350 grams if you do not become full. You can eat up to 350 grams without a problem, or wash your hands for it if you

29:12 Speaker 2 become full from 230 to 350 grams. If that amount fills you, you can wash your hands for the pizza. As we said, pizza dough made as a proper dough, with flour and water and more milk than water, or with milk alone, is a matter of doubt in the Alter Rebbe’s ruling. One more thing to mention: sometimes crackers today are made with just vegetable fat and flour. For example, someone might also make a pizza with a little flour and a lot of milk, and it comes out thin and crispy, as thin as a cracker. On the one hand, it is similar to the case of something you crunch, yes? On the other hand, it is not really a dough, and it has no water either. There are several grounds for leniency here, but everyone should ask their own rabbi about such a case. I’ll repeat: crackers are made today—and according to what the manufacturers say, it’s a little surprising that they can make them this way. I’m talking about more vegan-style crackers, made even with whole-wheat flour, that they say contain no water at all. It may be possible to make Mezonos on these from the outset, both because they are thin and are crunched like matzah—the third category the Alter Rebbe discusses, though he left it out here—and because they have no water at all. There are several reasons to be lenient. In any event, we’ve found that most cakes today are made from batter. They consist mostly of eggs, sugar, margarine and all sorts of things other than water, and most are made the way lekach cake is made. They are mezonos according to all opinions. We resolved the question of rugelach: they are mezonos, like pas haba’ah bekisnin, like a filled pastry. What remains is cheesecake with a layer on the bottom, similar cakes, and pizza. Here we are left with the Alter Rebbe’s ruling: a particularly conscientious person should be stringent, and one can certainly wash one’s hands for other bread.

31:45 Speaker 2 Even if that cake does not fill you up, you can eat it with the bread; or you can take enough of it to become full—more than 230 grams—and then wash your hands for it. As we said, we also excluded bagels from this discussion, based on testimony from Rabbi Groner. What happens if you fry dough? You did not bake it; you fried it. Here there is a question, so it is better to eat it during a meal. If the fried batter is very soft and watery, its blessing is Mezonos according to all opinions, even if you establish a meal on it. You can always make Borei Minei Mezonos on it, followed by Al Hamichyah. But if it is somewhat thick and you fry it in a shallow layer of oil—putting oil in a pan or pot, but not too much, not deep oil, about the amount used for schnitzel today—that is called frying. In that case, if the dough is thick, it is a problem, so eat it during a meal. But if you take actual dough, even just flour and water, and instead of frying or baking it, you cook it in oil, as with sufganiyot, cooking does not have the same status as baking. Whether or not you establish a meal on it, the blessing is always Mezonos, followed by Al Hamichyah, no matter how much you eat. Fricassee and Chanukah sufganiyot are always mezonos, forever and ever. You can eat as much as you want. Just bear in mind the cholesterol, the sugar and everything else, along with their consequences—but with Hashem’s help, there is no problem. There is no question here of Hamotzi and Birkas Hamazon. Now what remains for us to clarify is the law concerning bread that I want to change from the way it is normally eaten, making it into matzah crumbs or breadcrumbs. I want to make from it that Russian drink where they put in the bread, the...

33:56 Speaker 2 You mash the bread, turn it into a mush, and it becomes a kind of pap. What is it called? Is there a special name for it? The water turns milky from the bread. If I want to make kneidlach or emzelach, what is the halachah for all these kinds of bread that have turned into something else? They go through all sorts of different kinds of processing—ibud with an alef and ibud with an ayin. Now, take fully baked bread that you cooked. Note: I took bread and put it into a pot of water on the fire, a kli rishon. The bread shrank and shrank and shrank until it was less than a kezayis. Whether I can still tell that it is bread or not, if it became less than a kezayis as a result of cooking, or broke apart during cooking into crumbs smaller than a kezayis, then even if they still look like bread, the brachah will always be Borei Minei Mezonos, followed by Al Hamichyah—even if you make a meal of them. That is when it was baked and then cooked. If it remains larger than a kezayis, yes—even though cooking made it shrink and shrink, if it remains larger than a kezayis, it still has the status of bread: Hamotzi and Birkas Hamazon. If cooking brings it below a kezayis, it remains Mezonos and Al Hamichyah, like doughnuts. As though I cooked a doughnut. Yes, frying a doughnut is considered cooking, because doughnuts are made in deep oil. Fricassee is made in deep oil. What if I try to be clever? A clever person takes the bread and cuts it beforehand into small pieces, each less than a kezayis, then puts them into water and they lose the appearance of bread. They no longer look like bread. Fine. But since I took bread, and it was my hands that cut it to less than a kezayis—not the cooking—it retains the status of bread. As Rabbi [unclear] says, even the tiniest crumb of bread that you cannot see

36:12 Speaker 2 with the naked eye is forbidden. Some people do not pay attention to this. Besides the fact that it is neither nice nor pleasant for anyone around you to see, there are people who, right in the middle of speaking words of Torah, do not notice that they have taken a crumb and it has gotten into their food. Even the tiniest crumb of bread does not change its brachah: it is always Hamotzi and Birkas Hamazon if it retains the appearance of bread, even a trace of it. So what difference does it make if you cut the bread to less than a kezayis? Even a tiny crumb is Hamotzi and Birkas Hamazon. Therefore, if you cook it and it has not lost the appearance of bread, we know its brachah remains Hamotzi. Only if it has become less than a kezayis and lost the appearance of bread should a baal nefesh be stringent and eat it as part of a meal. A baal nefesh should be stringent for himself. Why? Because, after all, it was not cooking that reduced it from the size of a kezayis. And with frying, one should be stringent in every case. With frying, whether it has lost the appearance of bread or not, it always retains the status of bread. If you cut it beforehand to less than a kezayis and fried it, it will always retain the status of bread. Even if you fry a huge piece of bread and frying makes it shrink and shrink to less than a kezayis—and it happened through frying, not cooking—there is a question here about whether it retains the appearance of bread. With frying, one should be stringent in every case. Rabbi Chaim Naeh discusses this: if you take a large piece and fry it and it shrinks, what exactly does the Maharzak [?] mean? In any case, with frying one should be stringent in every case. So, to sum up: bread that was larger than a kezayis and was reduced below a kezayis by cooking—its appearance does not matter here; its size does. Less than a kezayis: Borei Minei Mezonos and Al Hamichyah. More than a kezayis:

38:06 Speaker 2 Hamotzi. If I cut it to less than a kezayis and then cooked it, if it no longer looks like bread, one may be lenient and say Borei Minei Mezonos and Al Hamichyah; if it still has the appearance of bread, one should be stringent. And with frying, one should certainly be stringent. Now, when we talk about bread placed in cold water, it has not been cooked. If it was cooked and became less than a kezayis, as we said earlier, it is Mezonos because of the cooking. We are talking about simply putting it in cold water, or even in a kli sheini: you took water from the fire in a kli rishon, poured it into a kli sheini, and put bread into that. Slowly, slowly, the bread fell apart, and a large piece became pieces smaller than a kezayis. If those pieces have lost the appearance of bread, they have the full status of Mezonos. If they have not lost the appearance of bread, the brachah is Hamotzi, whether they are larger or smaller than a kezayis. That is because no fundamental change took place: it was not cooked; the water caused it to fall apart. But if it became less than a kezayis and lost the appearance of bread, then, indeed, since... And when the water turns white, that shows that the appearance of bread has gone. If the pieces are also smaller than a kezayis, it is certainly fully Mezonos. If it is in a drink, like the drink they make in Russia with milk and bread in it, and it crumbles until it becomes quite liquid, it may even take the brachah of the drink, without even the brachah of Mezonos. In any case, this is how it works: you took a whole Shabbos challah that was left over and put it in water for a long time, even less than twenty-four hours. After twenty-four hours, it has the status of cooked bread.

40:02 Speaker 2 At least, that is what he maintains in the book Birkas Habayis. Under twenty-four hours, the rule that soaking is like cooking does not apply. It is still in the water, the water has turned white from it, and all the pieces have crumbled into pieces smaller than a kezayis: it has the status of Mezonos. If the pieces are larger than a kezayis, or if they have not lost the appearance of bread and the water has not turned white, the brachah remains Hamotzi. Why? Because it has not undergone cooking, or even frying, where there is some doubt. Nowadays people take pieces of matzah, crumble them, and then mix them into a kind of batter with eggs to make schnitzel. Since something else has been mixed in, that changes its appearance. True, this is not done by cooking but by frying, as with schnitzel, and ordinarily one must be stringent with frying. But adding another ingredient changes its appearance. In other words, matzah crumbs smaller than a kezayis have the brachah of Hamotzi, but once you mix them with egg and the like, their appearance changes. If it does not change their appearance, the brachah is Hamotzi. But we know that it does change their appearance somewhat; at least, that is how we act in practice. So even if this then forms a layer of matzah crumbs, eggs and the like thicker than a kezayis, since that layer was formed by mixing in other ingredients, then even though a layer larger than a kezayis has formed—ordinarily, more than a kezayis would seem to be grounds for saying Hamotzi, and it originally had the appearance of bread, the appearance of matzah—here it was the mixing that removed the appearance of bread, and it was also the mixing that made it hold together and become

41:51 Speaker 2 thick, substantial, and joined into a piece larger than a kezayis. It will not have the status of a kezayis of bread requiring Hamotzi. It is fully Mezonos, even though we did not cook it. And although, as we said, one must be stringent with frying in every case, here one need not be stringent, because even without cooking or frying it would be Mezonos. If I take a piece of bread smaller than a kezayis and put it in a kli sheini, or even pour water onto it from a kli rishon, and it remains less than a kezayis but retains the appearance of bread, then in a kli sheini its brachah is Hamotzi, while with a kli rishon it should be eaten as part of a meal. That is what the Alter Rebbe says. As we have said, even less than a kezayis, if it looks like bread, its brachah is Hamotzi. And a piece smaller than a kezayis affected by a kli rishon—even by water poured from a kli rishon. Sorry, I do not mean cooking in a kli rishon. Cooking in a kli rishon that removes the appearance of bread certainly makes it Mezonos. I mean pouring from a kli rishon. I took a kli rishon and poured from it. Even if it initially looked like bread, if it was less than a kezayis and pouring from a kli rishon caused it to lose the appearance of bread, it is Mezonos. If pouring from a kli rishon made it become less than a kezayis, there is a doubt as to whether that counts as cooking, so it should be eaten as part of a meal. Thank you very much. We have finished these laws of birchos hanehenin.