The Hidden Meaning of Matzah on Passover

It’s hard to believe that it’s that time of year when we begin to clean out our cupboards of all bread and start the long preparation for Passover. The central focus of Passover is the bread that we Jews eat called matzah, but it’s the inner meaning of matzah that centers our soul on this holiday. Passover recalls and celebrates the Jews’ liberation from slavery and we retell our story every year at the Passover seder.
The Passover holiday has two specific dietary requirements. One is to eat the matzah and the other is to refrain from eating bread or bread-like products that are referred to as chomeitz. Choimeitz, specifically, is leavened bread or the grains that are forbidden to be eaten during the seven days of Passover.
In addition to avoiding leavened bread, Jews are also supposed to avoid foods made with wheat, barley, rye, spelt or oats. These grains are the ancient connection to what was known as bread and thus these grains, when cooked to rise, constitute the spiritual quality of chomeitz. We Jews refrain from eating these grains, labeled chomeitz, for seven days.
The nature of chomeitz is to “puff up” and this symbolizes arrogance, whereas, the flat matzah represents humility. Humility is the beginning of breaking free from bondage and is essential for all spiritual growth. This is because only a person who can recognize his or her shortcomings can submit to a higher wisdom, and by submitting to a higher wisdom, one becomes free of their own self-limitations. On Pesach (Passover) our goal is to rid ourselves of even the slightest “chomeitz” both literally (grain products) and spiritually so we are able to connect better to God.
The holiday of Matzah is actually what Passover is referred to in the Torah. Matzah is often referred to as the bread of affliction or the bread of the poor during this spring holiday. The biblical explanation for the eating of unleavened bread at Passover ascribes it to the haste with which the Israelites left Egypt. They had no time to let the dough which they took with them leaven (rise).
Passover is a holiday of redemption and the matzah we eat is so central in the theology of freedom from slavery, yet we commit ourselves as slaves to God by relying on eating matzah to connect our soul to the ancient slavery we Jews performed so many thousands of years ago.
The exodus of the Israelites from Egypt was such a significant experience that the eating of matzah is an attempt to give our whole body the experience of walking away from the bondage of slavery under Pharaoh to become a free people in our own land with the freedom to worship God. We also remind ourselves of the souls of countless people around the globe who currently struggle for their own freedom and independence. One of the central gifts of the Jews to the world has been this recognition that God sides with slaves and intervenes on behalf of the downtrodden for those who yearn for freedom.
Matzah is that central component that puts our mind together with the freedom of our soul. Matzah represents the bare essentials of bread, the bare minimum to achieve nutrition without the yeast or flavoring. Matzah is a symbol of freedom by pulling back and seeing what real freedom is when we can’t mask it with the haughty nature of chomeitz. What do you really need? What is most essential in life? We’re chasing a lot of luxuries that aren’t essential, but freedom is essential. When you know what the essentials are, you pull back from the ego, if only for a short time to see life without all the extras and we understand what freedom is and how God is central to that focus.
You can enjoy the extras if you know what your bottom line is. Real freedom is knowing your bottom line and that is seeing our freedom through the eyes of God and our reliance on the holy one. That is what matzah is meant to teach. One of the points of the Seder on Passover is to ensure that we not think it was our own prowess or diplomacy, which freed us from Egyptian bondage. When we were enslaved in Egypt, we were in no position to help ourselves. Only because God took mercy on us are we free men and women today.
The matzah has accompanied us throughout all the years of our exile. It is with us throughout the evening, as we read the story of our enslavement and our redemption, to implant in our hearts the renewed awareness of the fact that it was God, and God alone, who took us out of Egypt and gave us our freedom. This is what matzah can teach and as we sit down at the sader tables this April let us think of what truly makes us free.
Happy Passover
Rabbi Jeffrey Lipschultz is the spiritual leader of Beth Judah Temple in Wildwood. He welcomes your comments at dvjewish@rof.net