Q. What is the correct brocho for lavash flatbread which is very thin and "floppy"? Is it the same brocho for any thin wrap?
A. On question 1287 in regards to the brocho on a flour tortilla (wrap) used as a bread substitute, as when filled with chicken or cheese, we wrote: Shulchan Aruch (168: 8) rules that very thin bread or as Mishna Berura (ibid. 37) explains a very diluted flour mixture baked with vegetables inside, the bracha will be mezonos. However, if he is kovea seuda (sets up an appropriate meal as opposed to eating a snack or nosh) and eats enough to be considered a proper meal, he should recite hamotzi. Mishna Berura (ibid. 80) maintains that kreplach, that he defines as thin sacks of dough filled with meat and the like, that the Remoh considers as bread, the Taz maintains that the brocho is mezonos (and so does Magen Avraham ibid. 20), Mishna Berura seems to agree.
Therefore, wraps and wheat flour tortillas, that are usually made from regular wheat batter, rolled thin. Being that the dough is similar to blila daka or rather very flat, thinner than a common pita or a lafa, the brocho should be mezonos unless one is kovea seuda on them. Poskim agree that for tacos and tortillas made from corn flour, the brocho is shehakol.
Vezos Habracha (168: 15: p. 494) writes that on thin pancakes and blintzes shells the brocho is mezonos.
A similar psak on wraps has been widely quoted in the name of Horav S. Z, Auerbach zt”l.
However, The OU Guide to Brachos maintains that “If one were to eat a plain wrap (unfilled) then it would be mezonos. Because it is not the way people eat this, this is a chisaron in the tzuras hapas. But if one were to eat a filled wrap with tuna or cheese etc… then the proper beracha would be hamotzi”
However, it seems that the current minhag in many places were wraps are served as a treat in gatherings or informal lunches, is to recite mezonos.
Horav Shlomo Miller's Shlit'a opinion is that it may be a sofek brocho and one should preferably in principle, wash netilas yodaim and eat a kezais slice of bread first. Nevertheless, when the wrap or wheat flour tortilla is indeed very thin or it has been treated and given a distinct flavor (usually also detected by color change), then one can recite mezonos, as long as one is not kovea seuda.
Lavash is defined as a soft, thin unleavened flatbread (Wikipedia) and if it meets the conditions mentioned above, would likely be subjected to the same Halacha ruling.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit’a
Important Numbers
