A Thought on the Hagaddah - The Real Reason We Use Three Matzot at the Seder

With Pesach fast approaching, I figured we would take the next few weeks to focus on insights into the Hagaddah. I share with you here a thought that Rav Soloveitchik develops in his Hagaddah.

The custom of most Jews on Pesach night is to make a bracha on three matzot. This is based on the opinion of Tosfot (Pesachim 116) and is brought down in Shulchan Aruch as mainstream halacha. The apparent reason for three matzot is as follows. One matzah is required to fulfill the law of לחם עני, the poor mans bread, which is to eat broken pieces of bread. Hence, that is why we break one matzah at יחץ. But like all other Yomim Tovim, we need לחם משנה, and therefore we need an additional two matzot. This also explains why the practice is to take all three matzot in hand for the recital of the first bracha, המוציא לחם מן הארץ, and then we drop the bottom matzah, no longer needing the לחם משנה, and make the על אכילת מצה on just the top two.

However, an analysis of the Rambam (חמץ ומצה ח:ו) yields a different result. 

"ולוקח שני רקיקין וחולק אחד מהן ומניח פרוס לתוך שלם ומברך המוציא.."

It seems that the Ramabam’s practice was to take just two matzot at the סדר, and nevertheless, he broke one of them at יחץ as well. What about the need to have two full matzot for לחם משנה? The Rambam explains that the special Pesach law of לחם עוני overrides the law of שלימות, or complete loaves that are normally required of לחם משנה. Therefore, only two matzot are necessary and the usual לחם משנה is not required in deference to the need of לחם עוני.

One could ask on the Rambam, if in fact there is no need of שלימות בלחם משנה, then why require two matzot, so that the bracha be made on one whole and one broken matzah? Just make the bracha on the two broken pieces? After all, לחם עוני overrides the need for full לחם משנה?

Rav Soloveitchik explains that an analysis of the Gemara in Brachot (39b) will shed light on the true meaning behind the opinion of the Ramabam. The Gemara there has a debate in the case where an individual has before him, during a weekday meal large broken pieces of bread and small whole loaves of bread. The Gemara questions over which one should the bracha be recited? One opinion says that you can choose whichever you prefer, while the other opinion says the complete loaves take precedence even if they are smaller. Yet, everyone would agree that if they were the same size, the complete loaves take precedence. The argument is only where the whole loaves are smaller than the broken pieces. The Rambam himself quotes this as halacha in hilchot brachot (7:4), that even during the week, it is preferable to make the bracha on a whole loaf.

Based on this, Rav Soloveitchik explained that the reason the Rambam requires one full matzah at the סדר to go along with the פרוסה has nothing to do with the law of לחם משנה ביום טוב, but rather, it has to do with the halacha that applies every day of the year, that it is always preferable to make a bracha over a whole loaf. So the law of לחם עוני has the ability to override the need for לחם משנה, having two loaves, but the need to have whole loaves is a weekday law, that cannot be overridden by the yom tov law of לחם עוני. The special yom tov law of Pesach can override the general law of yom tov, but it does not have the power to override the general weekday law of שלימות. That explains why the Rambam required one full and one broken matzah and having two broken matzot would not be correct. It is one broken matzah for לחם עוני and one whole one for שלימות. Our custom based on Tosfot obviously assumes that the law of לחם עוני is an additional requirement, not one that should override the requirement of לחם משנה. Hence, we accomplish both. We take three matzot, one broken for לחם עוני and two whole for לחם משנה בשלימות.