According to the Gemora on 115, one is Yotzay if the matzah is swallowed, as opposed to marror. Reason: One needs to taste the bitterness, while matzoh just needs to be ingested. My 9 year old son proposed that if one swallowed the afikomen, one would not be yotzay because one needs to have the taste linger on in the mouth. It sounded good.
However, later on there is argument, what the matzoh of the afikomen corresponds to. It is k'neged the korbon pesach, or is it the actual mitzvah of achilas matzoh.
Would this argument play a role in the question about swallowing afikomen. If its k'neged the pesach, you are not yotzay. If it's the mitzvah of matzoh, one is yotzay.
I apologize for asking a question when its not the inyan. I'm 3 weeks behind in daf and I just learned theses dafim. My son was very excited when I told him I was going to ask this question to you. Continued hatzlacha and bracha on this tremedous website and service you do for klal yisroel.
yosef samberg, silver spring, md
Questions not on the Inyan are also welcome!
The Mishnah on 119b says Ein Maftirim Achar ha'Pesach Afikoman. The Gemara explains that this means one may not eat after the Pesach. However, we must understand why one may not eat after the Afikoman. The Ba'al ha'Ma'or explains that the Chachamim forbade eating after the Pesach so that people would not start to eat other things and forget to say Hallel. The Ramban explains that the prohibition was instituted so that people would be sure to eat the Pesach Al ha'Sova. Either way, it is not that we seek the taste of the Matzah, rather that one may not eat after the Afikoman. The Gemara refers to this prohibition as the need for a person to keep the taste of Matzah in his mouth. However, in the case of Maror we need to have the taste at the time of eating.
The Rambam (Chametz u'Matzah 8:9) seems to have a different understanding. He says we need to have the taste of the Matzah since it is a Mitzvah to eat Matzah. According to the Rambam, it could be that we need Ta'am Matzah. However, we could say that even according to the Rambam, the Isur was to eat after the Pesach or Matzah, and the reason was so that a person should be left with the taste of the Mitzvah. However, this would not mean that a person must go and eat in a certain way to ensure that he will have Ta'am Matzah in his mouth.
The Avnei Nezer (OC 381) has a novel approach to the subject of Ein Maftirim. He explains that the objective is that it should be considered as if a person is eating at Chatzos. Since it is impossible for a human to determine the exact moment of Chatzos, we do this by having the taste of the Matzah in our mouths at this time, and with this it is considered as if our eating continued through Chatzos. According to this, it would appear that we would not accept swallowing without tasting.
Dov Freedman