Washing on Pizza

The halacha is that if you set a seudah on mezonos, you make hamotzi and bentch.

If its paas habah bkisinin, then mezonos

Pizza that is baked with cheese and sauce can be considered a form of pas haba bekisnin, bread that has pockets. The gemara says that such a food is unique, in that it requires a bracha of mezonos/al hamichya, unless one eats enough of it that is a shiur ot “kevias seudah”, the amount of food one eats during a meal. Even if he eats other things aside from the PHB”BK, they combine to fill this measurement.

There are 3 different opinions as to what defines the term “phb”k”. Some hold that it’s any bread-like dough that’s sweetened (a cake), others hold that it’s a pie type of food with a filling(hence the term”kisnin”, pockets), and a minority view is that it’s brittle(like pretzels). We rely on all 3 opinions independent of one another to make mezonos and not hamotzi, unless one has enough of it (or some of it with other food to combine) to have a meal. The Mishna berurah says that this amount is “3 or 4 bayim”,, or egg sizes, which is the equivalent of 8 shot glass sizes of food. Counting the “fluff” is a shailoh.

Pizza has a filling and is hence pas haba bekisnin. However if the dough is baked separately, it is definitely hamotzi. A slice has a lot more than this shiur, yet there is an argument to be made that the shiur describes a seudah, and one slice of pizza as it is eaten culturally isn’t a meal. We may also rely on the stricter opinions for kezayis and say that the slice doesn’t have 4 bayim. The common minhag is to only make hamotzi on two slices, and rav belsky told me that i personally can rely on this. (The implication was that each person should ask their own shailoh).

Basing it on the number of slices can be misleading because one pizza stores single slice is equal in size to another store’s two slices.

This is a loaded question-you’ll get a better answer somewhere else. Ask a rov, find a sefer that goes through the topic, etc.

@aviradearah Some poskim (including magen avraham) say if the filling is a meal type food (meat, cheese, etc) then it won’t qualify for PH’B. The Taz says like you said.

@Yaakovdoe It’s not “being machmir” to wash if the correct bracha is mezonos. The only way to cover all bases is to wash on bread and then eat the correct amount of bread to avoid shailos, but people generally aren’t interested in eating an extra slice or 2 of plain bread (especially on top of the pizza calories). So assuming one is eating just the pizza, the idea of “I’ll wash just to be safe” is wrong.

@Marxist It still depends on how much you eat and how fast.

Also, @UJM brings up a great point about the size of 2 slices.

Some people deny this-but it’s true-NOBODY, and I mean nobody-eats pizza for snack. No normal people eat it as a snack. People have seichal and they know that they are eating a meal. A meal doesn’t mean a 4-course-dinner, even just one dish is still considered a meal. So you have to wash on even one slice.

Now, where does making a mezonos come in?
When the pizza is made with fruit juice so it’s not considered dough l’halachah. Most pizza shops don’t use fruit juice, so it’s not a common application for everyone, but for those that do eat from pizza shops that make their pizza with fruit juice, they make a mezonos.

TS Baum

“Now, where does making a mezonos come in?
When the pizza is made with fruit juice so it’s not considered dough l’halachah. ”

I dont think this is correct.
Fruit juice or a filling (topping) are two differnt ways to defien pas habah B’kisnin. EITHER defitnion would suffice
If Pizza was made wit hfruit juice or if it had cheese (and not fruit juice) the halacha is the same, if eaten as a snack it is mezonos.
If eaten as a meal Hamotzi (even if made from fruit juice)

see Aviras post

Ubiq; did rav belsky tell you specifically a “side dish”? In yeshiva everyone quoted him as saying “2 slices and even a bite/ma shehu more” would require hamotzi – he wasn’t completely convinced of it in any case, as he told me directly to follow the minhag ha’olam.

He also was wont to say that apple juice makes no difference in the status of dough, and that shu”a is discussing thick juices which make a very significant change in taste and other characteristics of the bread. He said even if the dough had 3/4 apple juice and 1/4 water it would still be hamotzi; he repeatedly told us that mezonos bread is a contradiction in terms, and did not accept any of the marketed mezonos breads as being such.

The phb”k status of pizza stems from its filling, according to rav belsky.

Why is there a chumra with respect to a meal and not with respect to a snack? If it is bread,then it is bread and if it is cake then it is cake or babka? Why the confusion?

Benephraim,
“If it is bread,then it is bread and if it is cake then it is cake or babka? Why the confusion?”

no confusion. It is neither bread nor cake. It is something in between. Therefore it is treated as something in between, so it depends on how it is being eatedn if it is eaten like cake (ie as a snack) then it is treated like cake, if however it is being eaten as a meal then it is treated like bread.

(Cake too if enough eaten and eaten as a meal you may need to wash and bench since cake is also often pas habah bkisnin )

Common saychal
your comment is puzzling to me . “do you go up to random strangers in the street and ask for medical advice?” There have been literally dozens of threads on Covid19 all sorts of topics. Al thsoe are ok. chas veshalom a little torah should be discussed, and you try to shut it down.
You arent interested skip it , that is ok. Why the need to shut down a worthwhile discussion

Forgive me u. for the sake of clarity. I rephrase my question. Is it bread or not bread? There are only 2 possibilities as you must concur. If you are not sure you need to establish why you are unsure.

Ubiq, we’re in agreement that it’s phb”k, which is a category including all sorts of baked goods that aren’t halachikally bread. All of them have the same halacha, which is that one makes mezonos and al hamichya, unless one eats 4 bayim (or other foods together with the mezonos food to that amount).

An interesting shailoh discussed by some achronim is what the halacha is if someone ate cake, then hamentash, then pretzels. He ate bread me’ma nafshach, because one shita’s bread is another one’s phb”k. Before he eats the hamentash, he could say that he holds like the one who says that cake is phb”k, and that hamentash and pretzels are bread. Once he eats the hamentash, he can say he holds like the shita that pretzels are the only thing that’s truly bread, so he can say that he ate phb”k. But once he eats all three, then who would hold he didn’t eat bread? He lechora would have to wash and bentch on the last thing he ate,even if it’s not shiur kevias seudah.

This chumra isn’t mentioned in mishnah berurah as far as i know.

Benephraim

“There are only 2 possibilities as you must concur.”

I do not concur at all.
I am not even sure where you got this idea from.

There is a third possibility it is like bread and sometimes requires washing and sometimes doesn’t there are a whole category of foods that all into this group. See Avira’s inital post

Or Search for articles on “PAS HABAH B’KISNIN” The OU, Start K have nive articles. Halichipedia has an excellent very detailed page

Avira
that is interesting , I like it shkoyach

“Not everyone has a Rav. (I am not saying the OP doesn’t necessarily, just that there are people that don’t)”

Everyone must have a Rov.

If one doesn’t have one he would act the same way he would if he had no pair of pants.

@common saychel

Perhaps by asking random people online one can obtain mareh makomos to investigate as well as being able to hear different opinions on the shayla.

@ujm
“Everyone must have a Rov.”

Source?

Marx;. Asei lecha rav!

@ubiquitin
I feel a bit childish saying this, but I wonder: do you see your phone number when you step on a scale?
How can you consider it a snack? If you do, then you mean to say a meal of pizza is 4 or 5 slices?
I’m not sure how that’s possible to even fit in a human stomach without throwing up.
Or maybe you simply have to understand what a snack means and what a meal means.
I guess you send your kids with a few slices of pizza JUST FOR SNACK??? Sounds not right to me, you have to agree.

TS Baum

Your whole comment was a bit childish, and doesn’t make a lot of sense .
nonetheless lets explain

“do you see your phone number when you step on a scale?”
That would be an uncanny coincidence

“How can you consider it a snack?”
Because one slice of pizza is not very filling

” If you do, then you mean to say a meal of pizza is 4 or 5 slices?”
This question was strange. I told you what most people considered a meal “and that Two slices with a side dish (eg French fries) would be a meal.” How did you get from there to “4 or 5 slices”?

“I guess you send your kids with a few slices of pizza JUST FOR SNACK???”

What? Why? I said one maybe two slices was a snack We are talking about adults. how did you make that leap?

CS

“that is called draying ah kup not asking a shalah on a halacha lmasah”

Nu, so what’s the problem? you want him to dray his Rav ah kup? thats not nice.

some people dray ah kup about politics, some about Daylight savings time, and some like disucssing halacha. Fargin. IF it doesn’t interest you feel free to skip this

Marx, to be a qualified posek, one needs to spend years learning shas and poskim, not reading the Babylonian talmud for 45 minutes every day while drinking coffee .havei mesunim bedin, be diligent in paskenint – ine needs time, not an hour or two of perusing rishonim. One needs to have shimush. Kara veshana velo shemash is an am haaretz. Halacha requires a clear head, free of bias and foreign junk that one absorbs online, in the work place and through media consumption. It also requires a tremendous amount of yiras shomayim.

If someone is missing even one of these things, they cannot rule on any halacha shailos.

@Marxist, we don’t pasken out own shalos by reading a halacha book or asking a bunch of random people online nor do we do our own root canal by reading a dental textbook.

CS

” we don’t pasken out own shalos by reading a halacha book or asking a bunch of random people online nor do we do our own root canal by reading a dental textbook.”

not every shayla is a root canal.

TS, luckily for us, poskim such as mori verabi rav belsky zt”l, didn’t get their definitions of torah concepts by googling things.

@shunky being that you are a newbie [I assume] please be more detailed when you start a thread, it looked like you were asking halacha limaysa.
@ubiquitn not every root canal is a shyla.