I just taught a class last night that you can watch here: www.facebook.com/woodburyjewishcenter/live. In it I have kind of fallen in love with Matzah. Not the taste. Only my grandfather and my non-Jewish friends in public high school like the taste of matzah. But the meaning. Here are my three thoughts.
- Matzah is both the bread of affliction and the bread of redemption. We eat the bread because we left without time for it to rise and it was the bread we ate while we were slaves. While this is obviously contradictory it seems inherently true. The thing that makes us feel the most free is the thing most likely to "enslave" us. Whatever that thing is we will want more and more until it is the only thing in our life. matzah is a reminder to balance. It is a statement that having only one purpose is not enough in life.
- Matzah is the ultimate statement of faith! God says get out of Egypt now don't even let the bread rise and people just get up and go. Am I that ready for important opportunities when they come? Do I have that kind of foresight? matzah is deliberately ridiculous to remind me to keep my mind open
- I can't stand matzah, i mean just writing this makes all the saliva in my mouth flee. Yet, doing these 8 days each year is a also a reminder not to be bounded by my likes and dislikes. comfort allows you to make yourself quite frail. Passover, and matzah specifically, reminds me of the importance of some grit in life. Each terrible bite is a reminder that you know what my ancestors went through way worse stuff than i did. I'm going to be okay.
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