Pesach - Matzah
The Matzah and Chametz are really very similar. In fact they have almost the exact same ingredients. It is basically flour and water.
Yet, one is a mitzvah to eat on Pesach, and one is assur to eat on Pesach. One is the symbol of freedom from the slavery of Egypt and one is not. One is the bread of the poor man and one is the bread of the wealthy. One costs 6 NIS in the store to buy and one costs upwards of 160NIS per kilo.
The difference between these two items that are really so similar is striking.
This teaches us a lesson that it is all a matter of what you do with it. You can have a character trait, for example, that can go either way. It can be used for good or for bad. It is a matter of your attitude and your direction.
You can take the flour and water and make it into chametz, you can take the flour and water and make it into matzah. You can take any character trait within you, any behavioral custom, and use it for good, or use it for bad.
Matzah is not good or bad and chametz is not good or bad. But the same item can be used to make one or the other. The lesson of the matzah is that just like we have to purge the chametz from within us, so too do we have to learn to use our behaviors and traits for good and not for bad.
Showing posts with label matza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label matza. Show all posts
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
merciful matza
Pesah - Haggada
seder - maggid
Ha Lachma Anya... Kol Dichfin Yaisai V'yaichol.. hashata hacha l'shana habaa b'ar'aa d'yisrael.
We announce at the beginning of maggid that the matza is the poor man's bread and we invite anyone who wants to join us and partake in the meal and we wish for next year to be in rebuilt Jerusalem in Eretz Yisrael.
We are imaging ourselves as poor people by eating poor people's bread, but we are, at the same moment, inviting anybody who wants to come partake in our food! That is not the behavior of poor person. Poor people are carefull with their food and generally do not share it. They do not know when they will have food again so they are careful with the food they do have.
Maybe that is why we are inviting people at a time when they cannot hear and accept the invitation! We are poor so we are not really offering the invitation!
In all seriousness, how does this jibe with our attitude represented by the matza?
We are meant to remember the days of slavery by eating "poor man's bread". But we also want to show that we are not selfish but are generous and רחמנים - merciful and gracious. Even though we are "poor" we still offer to share our little food with other people.
We are all famiiar with the stories from the time of the Holocaust. You know - those stories where someone just had a crust of bread and he shared it with someone else who was weaker than himself. Why are thos stories retold in awe? Because that is not the natural action of someone who himself is needy. It is exceptional and is a sign of great rachmanus and care that one person has for another, despite the hardships he himself is enduring.
We try to show Hashem that we are now in the situation of slavery and destitution and only have "poor man's bread" to eat, but we would be so willing to share it with anybody else who might need a morsel of food. We wish to arouse the mercy of hashem by doing so and hope that He would show us the same compassion.
That is why we conclude the paragraph by a wish for next year in rebuilt eretz Yisrael. That has nothing to do with the beginning of the paragraph, so why is it said here? Because after we show the extreme mercy we would show others by offering them part of our little food, we wish Hashem would also show such mercy to us and allow our return to rebuilt Jerusalem.
seder - maggid
Ha Lachma Anya... Kol Dichfin Yaisai V'yaichol.. hashata hacha l'shana habaa b'ar'aa d'yisrael.
We announce at the beginning of maggid that the matza is the poor man's bread and we invite anyone who wants to join us and partake in the meal and we wish for next year to be in rebuilt Jerusalem in Eretz Yisrael.
We are imaging ourselves as poor people by eating poor people's bread, but we are, at the same moment, inviting anybody who wants to come partake in our food! That is not the behavior of poor person. Poor people are carefull with their food and generally do not share it. They do not know when they will have food again so they are careful with the food they do have.
Maybe that is why we are inviting people at a time when they cannot hear and accept the invitation! We are poor so we are not really offering the invitation!
In all seriousness, how does this jibe with our attitude represented by the matza?
We are meant to remember the days of slavery by eating "poor man's bread". But we also want to show that we are not selfish but are generous and רחמנים - merciful and gracious. Even though we are "poor" we still offer to share our little food with other people.
We are all famiiar with the stories from the time of the Holocaust. You know - those stories where someone just had a crust of bread and he shared it with someone else who was weaker than himself. Why are thos stories retold in awe? Because that is not the natural action of someone who himself is needy. It is exceptional and is a sign of great rachmanus and care that one person has for another, despite the hardships he himself is enduring.
We try to show Hashem that we are now in the situation of slavery and destitution and only have "poor man's bread" to eat, but we would be so willing to share it with anybody else who might need a morsel of food. We wish to arouse the mercy of hashem by doing so and hope that He would show us the same compassion.
That is why we conclude the paragraph by a wish for next year in rebuilt eretz Yisrael. That has nothing to do with the beginning of the paragraph, so why is it said here? Because after we show the extreme mercy we would show others by offering them part of our little food, we wish Hashem would also show such mercy to us and allow our return to rebuilt Jerusalem.
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.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
broken matza
Pesah - Haggada
Seder - Yahatz
We finally get to the matza we have spent so much energy baking properly or so much money buying.
It is striking that at the time of the exodus they ate matza because they did not have time to wait for the dough to rise. it was haphazard and a result of haste and possibly even lack of planning (after all they knew they would be leaving soon and they could have baked their bread earlier in advance of the actual departure). Yet we put so much energyinto it that it is really more time and energy consuming than if we would make regular bread.
We plant the wheat and have someone watch it (for matza shmurah at least) to make sure it grows under careful guidance and protection from unwanted water. We draw special water to knead it with. We guard the storehouses of wheat to ensure no unauthorized contact with water. We grind and bake and do the whole process under special precautions so as to ensure that no hametz is involved. And the original matza was really the result of haste, with no real planning.
And after all that energy, and after avoiding matza for two weeks prior to pesah (as is the common custom), at the first encounter we have with the matza you would think we would make a powerful bracha and eat it with great gusto, commemorating l'mehadrin the memory of the exodus.
But no. That is not what we do. At the first encounter we have with the matza, we break it in half. That matza we worked so hard to get whole. We worked so hard to find the perfect uncracked circle in the box among all the cracked ones, and the first thing we do is crack it in half and save some for later.
Matza, in general, is a conundrum of sorts. the matza is called "לחם עוני" - poor man's bread - yet it is also called the bread of freedom - לחם חירות. They ate it at the exodus from Egypt and we recline when eating it to symbolize our freedom, yet it is considered poor man's bread.
I think the matza is the symbol of Pesah. Matza is the reminder of the exodus, in a (non-kitniyot) nutshell.
We were poor and had to eat poor man's bread. We were slaves after all with nothing of our own. The matza was the transition point of change from slavery to freedom, from being a poor man to a free, rich man. The matza is representative of both sides of the exodus, pre and post. Eating the matza, as the central part of Pesah, reminds us of what we were and where we went. Who we were and who we became. And it should make us think of where we are going and who we will become.
That is why we break the matza the first time we see it. yes, we are free now and we should attack the matza like a good steak. But we have to remember our roots. We have to remember where we came from first, so we can better appreciate where we went and where we are going.
So we break it in half like a poor person, saving some for later, as he does not know where his next meal will come from. We put it away for later and then begin reading and retelling the story of the exodus, and via the reminder of the matza, we imagine ourselves as being in and leaving Egypt. The matza helps us make that transition ourselves, and directs us to the future.
Seder - Yahatz
We finally get to the matza we have spent so much energy baking properly or so much money buying.
It is striking that at the time of the exodus they ate matza because they did not have time to wait for the dough to rise. it was haphazard and a result of haste and possibly even lack of planning (after all they knew they would be leaving soon and they could have baked their bread earlier in advance of the actual departure). Yet we put so much energyinto it that it is really more time and energy consuming than if we would make regular bread.
We plant the wheat and have someone watch it (for matza shmurah at least) to make sure it grows under careful guidance and protection from unwanted water. We draw special water to knead it with. We guard the storehouses of wheat to ensure no unauthorized contact with water. We grind and bake and do the whole process under special precautions so as to ensure that no hametz is involved. And the original matza was really the result of haste, with no real planning.
And after all that energy, and after avoiding matza for two weeks prior to pesah (as is the common custom), at the first encounter we have with the matza you would think we would make a powerful bracha and eat it with great gusto, commemorating l'mehadrin the memory of the exodus.
But no. That is not what we do. At the first encounter we have with the matza, we break it in half. That matza we worked so hard to get whole. We worked so hard to find the perfect uncracked circle in the box among all the cracked ones, and the first thing we do is crack it in half and save some for later.
Matza, in general, is a conundrum of sorts. the matza is called "לחם עוני" - poor man's bread - yet it is also called the bread of freedom - לחם חירות. They ate it at the exodus from Egypt and we recline when eating it to symbolize our freedom, yet it is considered poor man's bread.
I think the matza is the symbol of Pesah. Matza is the reminder of the exodus, in a (non-kitniyot) nutshell.
We were poor and had to eat poor man's bread. We were slaves after all with nothing of our own. The matza was the transition point of change from slavery to freedom, from being a poor man to a free, rich man. The matza is representative of both sides of the exodus, pre and post. Eating the matza, as the central part of Pesah, reminds us of what we were and where we went. Who we were and who we became. And it should make us think of where we are going and who we will become.
That is why we break the matza the first time we see it. yes, we are free now and we should attack the matza like a good steak. But we have to remember our roots. We have to remember where we came from first, so we can better appreciate where we went and where we are going.
So we break it in half like a poor person, saving some for later, as he does not know where his next meal will come from. We put it away for later and then begin reading and retelling the story of the exodus, and via the reminder of the matza, we imagine ourselves as being in and leaving Egypt. The matza helps us make that transition ourselves, and directs us to the future.
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