Shavuos - Omer
The Torah is going through various details of the various holidays. It discusses the Omer offerings and upon arriving at the end of the Omer count (i.e. Shavuos), one has to bring a sacrifice called "shtei ha'lechem" - the two loaves. In 23:17 the Torah tells us, "מִמּוֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם תָּבִיאּוּ לֶחֶם תְּנוּפָה, שְׁתַּיִם שְׁנֵי עֶשְׂרֹנִים--סֹלֶת תִּהְיֶינָה, חָמֵץ תֵּאָפֶינָה: בִּכּוּרִים, לַיהוָה" or in English, "Ye shall bring out of your dwellings two wave-loaves of two tenth parts of an ephah; they shall be of fine flour, they shall be baked with leaven, for first-fruits unto the LORD."
This korban had a very unusual detail that makes it practically unique. It was made from chametz - leaven. It is one of two korbanos that contain leaven (the second is the korban Toda). All other sacrifices, including all the various mincha offerings, including the lechem ha'panim, including all other dough that would be offered in avrious forms in the mikdash, were leaven free. Kosher for Passover. Matza, albeit it thick and soft usually.
What is the significance of this sacrifice, the "Two Loaves" being made from chametz, unlike almost every other korban?
This offering, the שתי הלחם, is brought at the conclusion of the omer. The Omer count began on Pesach and concludes on Shavuos. In a sense, the Omer is the bridge between Pesach and Shavuos.
Pesach is יציאת מצרים - the Exodus from Egypt. Shavuos is מתן תורה - the giving of the Torah. Omer, the bridge between them, is the process of leaving Egypt and working towards מתן תורה. It is the time to prepare for the receiving of the Torah.
On Pesach we ate לחם עוני - poor man's bread, a.k.a. the Bread of Affliction. We eat the matza to remember the days of slavery and oppression. By doing so we recall the process of leaving Egypt and leaving that oppression behind. Shavuos is when we finally hit the target and got the Torah. That is when we ultimately became free and a nation.
To symbolize this we offer the rare sacrifice with חמץ - the opposite of poor man's bread. This is the bread of the free and the wealthy. The un-oppressed. Rich man's bread, if you must. When we get to Shavuos we can finally say the עוני of מצרים is behind us.
We start with poor man's bread, we work towards our freedom and we end with rich man's bread.
Showing posts with label exodus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exodus. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
why is our matza different from the original matza?
Pesach - Haggada
Matza
The matza presents an interesting question. We eat the matza because when the Jews left Egypt they quickly threw dough into the oven and took it out without leaving it enough time to rise properly and ended up with matza. It was the resut of haste and no planning. It was done at the last possible moment.
We eat our matza to commemorate that. But how do we prepare our matza? Do we just take some dough and under-prepare it?
No we do not. We worry for months to grow and guard the wheat. We require special water for the kneading. We clean all the machinery between every run of matza. We are very specific in how it is baked.
You would think "poor man's bread" would be much simpler and cheaper to make that it actually is. There is a funny joke that matza is called "poor man's bread" because it is so expensive to buy that it makes you poor.. How could that be and why is it so?
I would like to suggest that the matza is extremely symbolic in nature. We eat the matza to commemorate what they ate when leaving Egypt. In essence the whole seder night is really commemorative in nature. We are told that we must see ourselves as having left Egypt.
When we left Egypt we were poor slaves. Now we are [relatively] wealthy free people. It is not easy for someone who grew up in [relative] wealth to really honestly imagine himself as being poor. He cannot even picture it in his head. And don't fool yourself, our society is a wealthy one. Even our poor are better off than the poor of previous times.
Via the matza we are able to come to some sort of understanding. We have to work very hard to jolt our imagination. It is not enough to just throw the dough in and pull it out like a poor person. We have to work hard to achieve the same results.
If we just sit at our table and say that we are leaving Egypt and are poor and eating poor man's bread, we are fooling nobody but ourselves. We do not really understand what they went through. What they felt. What they experienced.
By toiling hard to make the matza properly (and other aspects of the seder) we can then achieve some sort of understanding. That is why making our matza is much more difficult than the original matza.
Matza
The matza presents an interesting question. We eat the matza because when the Jews left Egypt they quickly threw dough into the oven and took it out without leaving it enough time to rise properly and ended up with matza. It was the resut of haste and no planning. It was done at the last possible moment.
We eat our matza to commemorate that. But how do we prepare our matza? Do we just take some dough and under-prepare it?
No we do not. We worry for months to grow and guard the wheat. We require special water for the kneading. We clean all the machinery between every run of matza. We are very specific in how it is baked.
You would think "poor man's bread" would be much simpler and cheaper to make that it actually is. There is a funny joke that matza is called "poor man's bread" because it is so expensive to buy that it makes you poor.. How could that be and why is it so?
I would like to suggest that the matza is extremely symbolic in nature. We eat the matza to commemorate what they ate when leaving Egypt. In essence the whole seder night is really commemorative in nature. We are told that we must see ourselves as having left Egypt.
When we left Egypt we were poor slaves. Now we are [relatively] wealthy free people. It is not easy for someone who grew up in [relative] wealth to really honestly imagine himself as being poor. He cannot even picture it in his head. And don't fool yourself, our society is a wealthy one. Even our poor are better off than the poor of previous times.
Via the matza we are able to come to some sort of understanding. We have to work very hard to jolt our imagination. It is not enough to just throw the dough in and pull it out like a poor person. We have to work hard to achieve the same results.
If we just sit at our table and say that we are leaving Egypt and are poor and eating poor man's bread, we are fooling nobody but ourselves. We do not really understand what they went through. What they felt. What they experienced.
By toiling hard to make the matza properly (and other aspects of the seder) we can then achieve some sort of understanding. That is why making our matza is much more difficult than the original matza.
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