Passover- Various Halachot When Pesach Falls Out On Motzae Shabbat- IV

Passover- Various Halachot When Pesach Falls Out On Motzae Shabbat- IV


At the Pesach Seder every year, we have a custom to eat a hard boiled egg, Zecher LiKorban Chagiga. This is done to commemorate the Korban that was brought in the olden days that was in addition to the Korban Pesach. This Korban was the wheat that they used to eat during the meal.

Now how does an egg commemorate Korban Chagiga? Why do we use an egg? An egg normally is eaten as a sign of mourning. So we eat the egg to remember the destruction of the Bet Hamikdash, and as a result of the destruction we are unable to bring the actual Korban Chagiga.

So the question we ask today, is whether or not we eat the egg Zeceh LiKorban Chagiga when the Seder falls out on Motzae Shabbat. Why is this a question? Because in the olden days they did not bring Korban Chagiga on Shabbat. Korban Chagiga is only brought during the week, but on Shabbat you can not bring Chagiga, and as such it would seem that we should therefore leave it out when the first night of Pesach is on Motzae Shabbat.

So the Tosafot (a group of Torah Scholars, mainly grandsons and great grandsons of Rashi) in Masechet Pesachim asked this question, and the conclusion is that the commemorative eating of the egg should be the same no matter what night the seder falls out on. Why? Rabbeinu Peretz (of the Tosafot) explains the reason for this. He says that if the egg is not eaten when the Seder falls out on Motzae Shabbat with its basis that the actual Korban was not performed on Shabbat, then it will look like that every other year you are eating it as a Korban. Now of course we are unable to eat the real Korban, and therefore we don’t want people to assume incorrectly that this is actually a Korban. So we eat it every year as a commemorative item.

Halacha Lema'ase, The Ben Ish Chai brings this down as well as the Mishna Berura, that in all years, even when the Seder falls out on Motzae Shabbat, one should follow the custom of eating the egg.

The Rosh brings down from a Rabbi called the Ri MiKorbeel that the reason why we eat the Zecher Korban Chagiga on Motzae Shabbat is because they used to bring the Chagiga on Friday. And since the Korban was brought on Fridays when Pesach fell out on Motzae Shabbat, we therefore bring the Korban even when Pesach is on Saturday nights. However, the Rosh rejects this reasoning, because if you bring the Chagiga on Friday, by the time Shabbat comes it is too late already, and the time of the Chagiga has passed. Meaning a Korban has a limited time to eat it after it was sacrificed. So again, the reason we eat the Zecher LiKorban Chagiga even on Saturday nights is in order that the people should not think that we are doing it exactly like the Korban but rather it is only commemorative.