Q. An elderly couple, has difficulty in removing all the Pesach utensils and packing them in boxes, as well as returning the chometz dishes and other needed equipment. The help they need will only be with them this Monday. Can they extend their Pesach, eating matzos only, from Friday until Monday? Why is this not prohibited as seating inside the Suka on Motzei Yom Tov is? Do they have to do anything special?
A. Maase Rav (185) relates that the tradition of the Gaon of Vilna was to eat chometz immediately after the end of Pesach and would avoid consuming matza, that one can comply with it the mitzva of matza. The intention was to show that his eating of matza during Pesach was solely done with the intention of keeping the mitzva, and not for the good taste of the matza.
It is also reported that the Tzanzer Rebbe and others would put effort on reciting havdala at the end of Pesach with beer.
However, Maharil (H. Pesach p. 19) quotes that in the home of the Maharash , there was no chometz on Motzei Pesach and they ate matzos.
Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit'a explained, that eating inside the suka after the end of the Yom Tov is not prohibited, if one does not have any intention in keeping a mitzva. (Otherwise, he may be transgressing the prohibition of B'al Tosiff, or adding to the mitzva when not required). The same would apply to eating matza after Pesach.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as advised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit'a.
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