Parashat Tetzaveh 5781: A Basket of Matzah

עברית

An early source quoted in the Talmud teaches: “One asks about and teaches the laws of Passover thirty days before Passover” (BT, Pesachim 6a).

Today we are 28 days before the seder and therefore I will take advantage of a point of contact when this week’s Torah and Passover connect, to look about one of my favorite subject: bread. Hametz (leavened bread), matzah , and their similarities and differences.

To bake matzah, you need flour, water, efficiency and heat. The ingredients in simple bread are not very different: flour, water, yeast or starter, salt, time and heat.

In order to understand the importance of matzah, I will start with hametz, and a firm stance against the school of thought that compares leavening to the evil inclination. The origin of this idea is apparently in the fact that until yeast was marketed as a separate product, in approximately 1870, all bread was sourdough bread that was leavened by a starter, a piece of dough saved from the previous batch. But that dough is not dirty rather it is a prime medium for growing one of the wonders of nature: natural yeast. Nor should we take its close relative, commercial yeast lightly. It is the product of scientific research and human ingenuity.

There is a dizzying array of leavened bread: from artisan bread built on a starter carefully preserved for years to the simplest roll from the corner grocery and many, many others: pita, baguette, focaccia, bagels, injera…. To each of these the baker brings knowledge, experience, skill and technology. Sometimes, they also contribute creativity and love.

Matzah is the opposite. Many limitations and conditions, including a very strict timetable, must be met to bake matzah that complies with the requirements of Jewish law. As in any other subject related to Jewish law there are disputes about the details but there really isn’t much room for maneuvering.

Eating simple matzah on Passover symbolizes the initial break with Egyptian culture where, to the best of our modern knowledge, the baking of sourdough bread originated.

Instead of creativity, baking matzah requires concentration, efficiency and teamwork. Are these the characteristics that the basket of matzah symbolize in the ceremony inaugurating the priests included in this week’s Torah reading  (Exodus 29: 2-3,23, 32)?

Leavened bread was permitted in the Tabernacle and Temple only on Shavuot (Leviticus 23:17). Was the year-round presence of matzah (Leviticus 2:11) intended to be a silent reminder to the priests: work together, concentrate on your task and comply with the schedule? Perhaps. Most likely that’s an interpretive reading and not what the text originally meant.

To live a full life all year, outside of the Temple, we need both leavened bread and matzah in our lives. Homiletically, we can say that we need knowledge, experience, skills, creativity, efficiency, precision and teamwork.

But we do not live by homiletics alone. We also need the simplest of things: nutritious bread. 

The Shulchan Arukh (code of Jewish law) quotes the Talmudic passage with which I began, encouraging scholarly preparation for the holiday. In his commentary on the passage, Rabbi Moshe Isserles adds “And it is customary to buy wheat to give to the poor for Pesach. And whoever has resided in the city for twelve months must give for this” (Orach Chayim 429). Their custom was to buy wheat for the poor. Our custom is to provide a greater variety of food, but note that anyone who’s lived in the town for one year must contribute. Even someone who moved in the past year, still lives in our global village. Both homiletical and straight-forward readings of the Torah are good, but what’s really important is making sure that one month from tonight everyone is seated around a table, and can eat and be satisfied.