Moving Forward-Rabbi Boris' Blog

In just a few days, we will hopefully be sitting around our tables for our Pesach seders, blessed not only with good stories and plenty of singing and conversation, but also good food. Of course the most visible difference in the meals we eat during this week is our lack of bread, cakes, pasta or anything that has hametz, leavening.  Instead we eat only matzo. And just in case we don’t already know, every year, during the seder we ask the question:  “What is the reason for this matzo?”  We give the answer:  “They baked the dough that they brought out of Egypt as unleavened matzah, since it had not risen, for they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay” (Ex. 12:39). This explanation connects this important Passover food to the story of the Exodus, but this is only one part of the mitzvah. Just a few lines earlier we read the prediction of eating matzo, this time we do it not out of necessity, but because we are simply commanded by God: “On the evening [of Passover], you will eat matzot” (Ex. 12:18).  

The rabbis remind us that there are two levels of eating matzo. The first is an important one for anyone who easily tires of the hard cracker: it is only required to eat matzo during the first night of the seder! The rest of the week we only must refrain from eating hametz, but matzo itself is optional. However, even though it is not required, the sages say that eating matzo throughout the holiday is still fulfilling a mitzvah. 

How can this be?

Rav Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel, tells us that eating matzo on the first night is fulfilling this original command that on the first night of Pesach, “you will eat matzo”.  We do this out of yirah, reverence for God, and to follow the mitzvot which we have been given. Yet the rest of the week, we eat matzo because of ahavah, out of love for God.  (Or for those who prefer a less supernatural God concept--the first day we eat Matzo out of deep respect and a sense of obligation to follow the rituals and traditions of our people, and the rest of the week, we do it out of a simple, deep love for these traditions and practices).  But which of these actions is greater, yirah or ahavah? 

According to the Ramban, ahavah, love, is greater, and when there is a legal argument about which kind of mitzvah takes precedence, a positive (do this) or negative (don’t do this) one, the positive usually is seen as more important. And think about this, as we resist the urge to bite into a bagel or a tasty cheese sandwich during the week of Pesach, according to this view, we should do it not out of the guilt or fear of breaking with tradition, we should instead bite into that matzo sandwich with a smile, with pride with the deepest of love. Really, don’t forget this love during breakfast on the seventh day. You might need it!

So the love and the fear of matzo! This idea is actually is symbolic of a larger discussion about how we should approach Jewish practice and ritual overall.

We find a very peculiar statement in the Talmud. After the resurrection of the dead, which we are told will happen when the Messiah comes, the mitzvot will be annulled (Niddah 61b). We will not longer be required to keep Shabbat, keep kosher, or even give tzedakah to help those in need. 

In fact, the mitzvot themselves will not change. What will change is how they are performed. Every mitzvah that was commanded and obligated will no longer be observed as obligatory commandments of Yir'ah, fear, but as voluntary acts of Ahavah, expressing our love of God and holiness. To keep it simple: we will eat matzo, not because we have to, but for no other reason then we want to!

So we start off our week of Passover with the large gathering of the Pesach seder, we tell the story of the Exodus, we sing, we eat, and we eat matzo. Then things quiet down as we go back to work and resume our normal lives during hol hamoed, the days in between the holiday. And we eat matzo. It is during this time that we need to take the lessons that we gained from the seder, the lessons of freedom, of community, and of justice and bring them into our lives. And we eat matzo.  As we are asked to feel as if we were slaves in Egypt at the seder, during this time we look for ways to bring this healing, freedom and justice into our lives and those in our world community. And we eat matzo. 

But what does this mean--why so much matzo? Because during these days, we make the words of the haggadah real and turn them into action. We try to move our understanding of the meaning of Pesach, from just hearing the story, from the ritual of the seder, the obligation and yirah, fear,  to true, deep and meaningful action filled with ahavah, love. From fear to love, or even more clearly, from obligation to meaning and action. This path of the holiday is in fact beyond religion or belief in God, and is at its core about remembering to make the values of the seder real in our lives. The most simple mitzvah to eat unleavened bread makes sure that we remember after the seder is over to turn the stories of our past into hope for our future. 

And don’t worry, there will be plenty of bagels left when it is all done.

With blessings for a meaningful and joy filled week of Pesach!