Parshat Tzav 10 Nissan 5762, 23 March 2002

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - Passover is Biblically known as the Festival of Matzot, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Undoubtedly the major symbol of this symbol-packed holiday is matzah, a crumbly cracker like the poor relative of the pumpernickel. Despite all of the advertisements of the various matzah companies singing the praises of a special taste of their unleavened bread product, the very fact that matzah must be coated with eggs or wrapped in chocolate in order to make it more palatable tells the true story. What then is the real message of the matzah? It seems to me that only when we understand that can we begin to understand the significance of the Festival of Passover.

Fascinatingly enough there seems to be a difference of opinion as to the precise significance of the matzah. The Mishnah in tractate Pesachim (chapter 10) reads, "Rabban Gamliel says, '....the reason for the matzah is because our fathers were redeemed in Egypt' "(and this text is in accordance with the overwhelming majority of manuscripts).

The author of the Hagaddah however seems to have a different spin. "For what reason is the matzah? Because the dough of our fathers did not sufficiently rise (leaven). Before the King of all Kings the Holy One Blessed He appeared to them and redeemed them immediately, as it is said, 'and they baked the dough which they brought out of Egypt, cakes of matzah, which had not risen....'.

Apparently, for the Mishnah the matzah was the food that the Hebrews ate in Egypt. They would complete a rigorous and backbreaking day of work, and would come home exhausted and hungry without having the requisite energy to begin to prepare food. They therefore baked this unleavened, semi-baked bread which they managed to put in their mouths before dropping into the stupor which would scarcely refresh them for another day of rigorous labor. The author of the Haggadah on the other hand sees the matzah as the bread baked in haste which the Hebrews took with them as they hastened to depart from their Egyptian servitude. From this perspective, matzah is the bread of freedom.

I would suggest that there is not really a difference of opinion; the fact is that there are two places in the Passover Seder at which time we are commanded to eat at least an olive size of matzah: the first is when we begin the meal with matzah after having concluded the maggid portion of the haggadah and the second is at the conclusion of the meal when every celebrant must eat an additional olive sized portion of matzah called the afikoman. The first piece of matzah which we put in our mouths we must eat when we are hungry; the second piece of matzah which we put in our mouths we must eat when we are satiated.

But even the afikoman, the matzah which we eat on a full stomach, does not yet truly express or symbolize complete freedom. There is another interesting difference of opinion concerning the matzah - this time between two great early rabbinic authorities and concerning the number of matzot which we place on the seder plate. According to Rashi, the great French authority of the 11th century, we take three matzot affectionately called Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov or Cohen, Levi and Yisrael. Yitzchak or Levi, the middle matzah, is to be broken before we make the blessing and begin to eat the matzah. Although this is the major custom, Maimonides, the great Spanish scholar, insists that we take only two matzot and break the second (Laws of Chametz and Matzah 8,6). He is exactly in line with an unequivocal statement in the Talmud which likewise calls for two matzot, the second of which is to broken (B.T. Berakhot 39b). The reason why Rashi asks for three matzot is because we generally ordain our Sabbath and Festival tables with two whole loaves of bread or challah, as a symbol of G-d's grace in giving us the desert Manna. Since we are breaking one matzah in half during the seder, Rashi insists that we must still have two whole matzot for lekhem mishneh. Maimonides however reminds us that Matzah is called by the Torah "bread of affliction"; hence the bread of affliction impinges upon the two whole breads of G-d's graciousness, in effect expressing the lack of completion of our redemption. Indeed, Rav Nachman of Braslav had a most unique way of explaining why we break the matzah in half: in an unredeemed and incomplete world, the only whole individual is the one with a broken heart. Passover is therefore the Festival of half redemption, not - yet redemption; the Festival of the broken matzah.

Now while it is certainly true that we call Passover our Festival of Freedom, we do not call it our Festival of Redemption. As we have seen, there are two clear stages of eating matzah within the seder. The first when we begin the meal, we are eating when hungry the unfinished bread that the Hebrews ate as slaves in Egypt. We even open the Haggadah with the words, "this is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in Egypt". The second, when we eat the Afikoman matzah at the end of the meal, we are celebrating our Exodus from Egypt and our bread of freedom. However the Exodus did not lead us into the Promised Land, our ultimate inheritance and resting place. We went from Egypt into a desert, fraught with torrid heat by day and freezing winds by night, an alien topography without any indigenous means of sustenance. The desert may have been preferable to Egyptian enslavement but it was fraught with complaints at the lack of water, small-minded rivalries and rebellions against Moses' leadership. Even after we left Egypt, we still had a long way to go for complete redemption.

Hence we understand why matzah is truly half-baked bread, redemption anticipated and affirmed but not yet achieved. I always imagine the first olive size of matzah, the bread of affliction the Hebrews ate in Egypt, to be what the Jews ate in Auschwitz with the Ani Maamin on their lips; and the second olive size of afikoman matzah to be similar to what we eat in Efrat after returning in the evening from the Tunnel Road. Yes, we eat dinner in Efrat with a very real degree of satisfaction and gratitude for the fact that we have indeed left the bleak black of exile and servitude, but we are soberly reminded by every news report that we still have a way to go in order to achieve complete redemption. Is the wine goblet half full or half empty? The Haggadah Dayenu prayer teaches us to be grateful for what we have even if it is not yet everything that we desire. And it is crucial to remember that Passover is after all only the first of the three great festivals of the Hebrew calendar year. We still have the full redemption of Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret to look forward to!

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach.

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