Bridges in the Gulf

Easy As Pie

We wanted to learn about authentic Yemenite customs, and Yichye’s family — whose mesorah hasn’t been diluted — was a great place to start. As we’d already spent a week baking matzah in other UAE emirates, we were particularly interested in how the Yemenites bake their unique soft matzah. We have been privileged to bake matzah with Israeli Yemenites, including Rav Shlomo Machpud himself, but were looking forward to see it from, literally, the last Jews of Yemen. Plus, as per Yichye’s request when we’d earlier met him in Israel, we even brought the shmurah matzah flour.

We were excited to learn that we’d come at the right time — just in time for the family’s matzah bake. The oven, located in their small backyard surrounded by stone walls, is not what we are used to with a flat surface on which the matzah is placed. It is more like a metal tandoor with the fire on the bottom heated by wood; its thick walls absorb the heat to help in the baking of the matzah that is smacked onto the inner surface of the vertical walls.

Once the wood has turned into glowing coals, the flour and water are mixed, and, as per their ancient custom, salt is added. The ratio of water to flour is much greater than for standard hard matzah, and this very wet dough takes only two or three minutes to thoroughly knead.

Due to its wetness, it will stick to dry hands, and thus Yemenite Jews are the only community to practice the next step, which the Gemara describes and is explained in the Rambam (Hilchos Chometz U’matzah 5:12) and Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chayim 459:14-15): Two bowls of water are used, one to cool your hands so the heat from your hands after exposure to the oven does not cause the dough to rise faster and become chometz in less than 18 minutes, and the second to moisten your fingers so that the dough doesn’t stick to them.