Rabbi Horowitz’s grandson, the editor of this commentary, adds his own comments in a number of places – but he always makes it clear when insights are his own and not those of his grand father. Here he raises the question of why it is necessary to explain the significance of eating matzah on Pesah. In more of a halachic inquiry, he distinguishes the difference between the matzah we eat toward the end of the meal and the matzah we toward the beginning of the meal. The question here is, why do we eat this matzah as opposed to the matzah we eat as the afikomen? This Matzah which we eat, why do we eat it: (A comment attributed to the grandson of Rabbi Horowitz.) The minimum amount of Matzah that we are obligated to eat at the Passover Seder is a large olive’s worth.¹⁴²; this is a common measurement used in halachic literature However, at a time when we eat the afikomen instead of the Passover offering we eat a second “olives worth” as well in place of the pesah: so we are obligated to eat two olives worth, one when we recite the blessing for the matzah and the second when we eat the afikomen. The first “olives worth” we eat when we are hungry and the second after the meal when we have eaten a full meal as a symbol of the pesah offering which was also eaten when the people were full. So the question, “why do we eat the matzah,” is about the first bit of matzah that we are about to consume. The questioner wonders, shouldn’t it be enough to consume the second bit of matzah which symbolizes the pesah offering? The reason for the two olives worth of matzah are different from one another. While the second replaces the pesah offering (which was originally consumed together with matzah), we still need something as a reminder of the miraculous nature of God’s deliverance. That is why before we eat the first bit of matzah, we explain in conjunction with it, “Even before the dough of our ancestors had time to become leavened, God revealed Himself to them …and redeemed them.” The first piece of matzah is in celebration of the Passover story and the second piece a commemoration of the special offering which our ancestors made on the eve of Passover. We can now understand the question of the wise child. In his wisdom, he correctly presumes that the pesah offering is the most important symbol of the evening; he doesn’t understand why we don’t begin the meal with the afikomen and then have the rest of the meal. We therefore answer him, “Nothing should be eaten after the afikomen!” He now understands why we begin with another bit of matzah as a reminder of the story and end with the matzah which symbolizes the pesah offering.

footnotes: ¹⁴² A kazayit