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Comments on Why are Matzah and Sukkah different in terms of intent?

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Why are Matzah and Sukkah different in terms of intent?

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Bottom line question is why is a Sukkah different from a Matzah in terms of (not) requiring (expressed) kavannah in its creation?

A Sukkah (according to the ruling of Beit Hillel on Mas Sukkah 9a) need not be made specifically to be a sukkah. Even the schach, strictly speaking, does not need to be put on l'shem Sukkah. Theoretically, if I walked through a war zone on Sukkot and saw a shell of a house on which branches happen to have fallen, and it conforms to the rules of a kosher Sukkah, I can use it as such. Similarly, if a non-Jew builds my Sukkah, I can use it and make the bracha of "leisheiv." [according to Artscroll, the Yerushalmi instructs a Jew to make a minor adjustment but that doesn't seem to be a sine qua non of kashrut]

But Matzah requires an expressed Kavannah -- that the matzah being made is being made specifically for the sake of the mitzvah of eating matzah http://rabbi.bendory.com/cgi-bin/album/matzo/67 So if a non-Jew were to make it, it still needs the supervision of a Jew to ensure that someone has the right intent during the creation https://www.yeshiva.co/midrash/7405

BTW, the knotting of tzitzit also requires expressing an intent when making it but I don't know if the tying of the knot in tefillin shel rosh does also.

Why would matzah require a particular and expressed intent but a Sukkah would not?

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1 comment thread

Just a guess (2 comments)
Just a guess
Monica Cellio‭ wrote almost 2 years ago

Just a guess, but: for the sukkah case, you can inspect the result and determine if it can meet your needs. With matzah, though, how do you know if it was made within 18 minutes, versus 20 or 25? Without the intent to fulfill the laws of matzah, can the maker be presumed to be that careful?

If that reasoning is relevant, though, I have no clue for why tzitzit would require intent when, as with a sukkah, you can inspect the result.

rosends‭ wrote almost 2 years ago

Another problem with that is that if a frum Jew makes the matzah but doesn't have the intent (even if he follows the recipe the way he always does) then something is missing. And I can have a guy supervise the process to attest to the time limit and give it an OU but that says nothing about being made lesheim mitzvah.