Pat Haba B’kisnin, Establishing a Meal, and We Don’t Care About Your Intentions
Matthew Minsk
**All citations come from the Orach Chaim section of the particular source, if applicable.**
You sit down to eat, and in front of you lays a greasy, steamy, delicious slice of pizza. You eagerly pick it up, bring in to your mouth — and look at it, perplexed. What bracha should be recited before eating it: hamotzi because the crust is kind of like bread, or mezonot since pizza is a grain product that isn’t bread?
The easy option is to say mezonot, since hamotzi requires you to find a washing station — taking time away from your pizza. But the easy option isn’t always the right option in Halacha, and even if it is, you should know why. So what bracha should one recite on pizza? Like everything in Halacha: it depends.
The source for brachot before eating comes from a mishnah in Masechet Brachot (35a). The Mishnah records that one recites hamotzi on bread; on 35b, the Gemara concludes that the bracha mezonot applies to products from the five grains (wheat, barley, spelt, oats, and rye), excluding bread itself.
This seems simple, but not all grain products clearly fall into the categories of “bread” or “not bread.” Brachot 42a tells a story of Rav Huna eating thirteen sweetened loaves; the Gemara notes that he didn’t say birkat hamazon afterwards, since he didn’t consider it to be bread. Rav Nachman admonishes him, saying that eating that much food shows he ate as a full-fledged meal, and any amount generally considered a meal necessitates birkat hamazon (and by extension, hamotzi). The Gemara concludes that this category of foods, labeled pat haba b’kisnin (literally: bread that comes as dessert), requires hamotzi if one establishes a meal on it.
From a plain reading of the Gemara, two questions jump out: What is pat haba b’kisnin, and what constitutes establishing a meal?
Pat Haba B’Kisnin
Three main definitions of pat haba b’kisnin exist. The Rambam (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Brachot 3:9) writes that when one mixes honey, oil, milk, spices, or other ingredients similar to those into dough, and then bakes it (such as a cake), he creates pat haba b’kisnin. The Tur (168), among others, describes this category as bread baked with pockets of sugar, almonds, nuts, or the like (similar to a pie). Rabbi Hai Gaon (as recorded by the Beit Yosef (168:9)) holds that pat haba b’kisnin is a mildly spicy cracker.
The Beit Yosef then introduces the idea that due to the principle of safek brachot l’hakel (we act leniently in doubts regarding brachot) all three of these categories earn the status of a pat haba b’kisnin, and warrant mezonot (if eaten in a small portion). The same author, Rabbi Yosef Karo, similarly writes in the Shulchan Aruch (168:7) that all three opinions are accepted, a decision unchallenged, and even recodified, by later authorities.
The Aruch Hashulchan (168:15, based on the Beit Yosef 168:9) clarifies that pat haba b’kisnin is, in fact, bread, but the rabbis conditionally excluded it from the laws of bread regarding hamotzi and birkat hamazon.
Establishing a Meal
Now that we know what pat haba b’kisnin is, the question now becomes what bracha should be made on those foods. Brachot (42a) clearly distinguishes between using pat haba b’kisnin to establish a meal and eating it outside the context of a meal, a differentiation accepted by all halachic authorities. If one establishes a meal on pat haba b’kisnin, he makes hamotzi before and birkat hamazon afterwards; otherwise, one says mezonot and al hamichya.
The Gemara (Brachot 42a) requires hamotzi on an amount of pat haba b’kisnin “on which others would establish a meal.” Nearly all commentators understand that the standard for saying hamotzi (and birkat hamazon) is the amount of food that most people would make a meal on, not necessarily what the individual intends to be his established meal. This concept of nullifying the eater’s own intentions relative to the majority of people first appears in the Tur.
The Tur’s understanding would imply that one’s personal level of satiation is secondary to the general public’s satiation from a particular amount of food. (Rosh (Berachot 6:30) , Beit Yosef (168:8), Shulchan Aruch (168:6)).
The Rosh seems to disagree, instead basing the bracha one recites on the context in which one eats — meal or dessert/snack — regardless of the amount he eats. However, this is not the mainstream, accepted halacha.
Although nearly all authorities agree that the standard for saying hamotzi comes from what others would establish as a meal, the poskim debate the volume of that amount. The Mishnah Berurah (168:24) understands the Beit Yosef as writing that this amount is the regular amount for a morning or evening meal, the two main mealtimes in his day. (According to the Mishnah Berurah, the Vilna Gaon holds this way.) Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (Igrot Moshe 3:32) notes that according to this view, the amount needed to establish a meal would fluctuate based on cultural norms in each time and place. He extends this ruling even to different age groups — meaning that the amount for establishing a meal would likely be higher for a teenager than for an eldery person.
The Mishnah Berurah also presents an opinion for the amount of a meal based on the laws of establishing a residence for Shabbat (eruvei techumin), which would equate a meal to four beitzim (volume of an egg), which equals roughly ¾ cups.
The Mishnah Berurah concludes that if possible, one should try to adhere to the more strict view of four beitzim, even though he thinks the Beit Yosef’s opinion fits better with the language of the Shulchan Aruch.
The Aruch Hashulchan (168:16) contributes that the volume for establishing a meal could equal half of an omer (21.6 beitzim), based on the volume of the man that fell in the desert. (Rabbi Feinstein doesn’t cite this as a primary opinion, only addressing the other two.)
The Magen Avraham (168:13) adds a wrinkle, recorded in Igrot Moshe as a potential concern, that if a pat haba b’kisnin dish is usually eaten with side dishes or toppings, one could count those side dishes towards the amount for establishing a meal, which would lower the amount of the bread product needed. The Magen Avraham further contends that even if one only ate the pat haba b’kisnin product and not its accompanying sides, he would still say hamotzi on it if he is filled by that smaller amount.
This is all great… but how does it relate to pizza?
As you might have guessed, many authorities consider pizza to be pat haba b’kisnin. At first glance, it seems to make a lot of sense: Pizza is a baked grain product that isn’t bread because of the tomato sauce and cheese baked on it, similar to pie. (All authorities would agree that pizza made by baking the crust and only afterwards adding toppings would certainly be considered bread since bread status can’t be retroactively removed.)
Even here, however, machloket strikes. The Shulchan Aruch (168:17) codifies that the bracha on a dish called “pashtida” (a bread product baked together with meat, fish or cheese) is always hamotzi. The Magen Avraham (168:44) explains that since meat, fish, and cheese are considered “substantial” foods by themselves, one would make hamotzi even if one doesn’t establish a meal on it — despite its appearance as pat haba b’kisnin. The Mishnah Berurah (168:94) elaborates that the halachic status of pashtida is such since people eat the dish in order to fill them up, like regular bread, so it, in essence, adopts bread’s status as an “always hamotzi/meal food,” regardless of quantity.
The takeaway from pashtida is that food made in the manner of pat haba b’kisnin can retain the status of “meal food” (on which one would recite hamotzi) if it is always eaten as a meal.
On this last point, Rabbi Chaim Jachter (in an article published YUTorah titled “The Bracha on One Slice of Pizza”) breaks down the opinions of various gedolim on pizza’s status as either regular pat haba b’kisnin or a pashtida-type food.
Rabbi Jachter explains that Rabbi Feinstein was reported to have included pizza as pat haba b’kisnin, meaning that one slice (less than the amount for establishing a meal) would be mezonot, but two slices (Rabbi Feinstein’s estimate of the amount for establishing a meal) require hamotzi. Rabbi Jachter includes the opinion of Rabbi Mordechai Willig, who says (Am Mordechai, p.99) that pizza is normally eaten nowadays in the context of a meal, not a snack, meaning it has the status of meal food, not pat haba b’kisnin “snack/dessert food.” Rabbi Jachter also records that Rabbis Ovadia Yosef, Yisroel Belsky, Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, and Hershel Schachter all consider pizza to be meal food, requiring hamotzi on any amount of pizza.
So where does that leave you, holding up your slice of pizza?
If you have two slices of pizza (or more), almost all halachic authorities agree one would need to say hamotzi and birkat hamazon, since that amount is almost certainly more than four beitzim and also seems to qualify in contemporary American society as a filling meal. (A teenager perhaps could argue along the lines of Igrot Moshe (3:32) that the average meal for a teenager is three slices of pizza.)
According to the justapinch.com “Perfect Pizzeria Pizza Dough” recipe, baking an average 16” pizza requires three pounds of flour, meaning that each slice would require less than four beitzim of flour (needed for kevi’at seudah per the Mishnah Berurah (186:24)). Regarding the opinion of Rabbi Feinstein, one slice wouldn’t seem to satisfy an average person as a meal, also indicating that one would recite mezonot on one slice. Therefore, unless one follows the Magen Avraham (168:13) method of including toppings, it doesn’t seem one slice satisfies the amount for kevi’at seudah.
Finally, if one holds that pizza is meal food in the vein of pashtida, then even a single bite of pizza would require hamotzi, as it does with a slice of bread.
No matter what bracha you decide to recite on pizza, know why you do so, and enjoy your pizza!
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