Timeless TorahTHE TASTE OF MATZAH
Matzah, is not only the world’s first fast food (it not being allowed to rise), it is also the, “Poor man’s bread that our forefathers ate in the Land of Egypt.” / Today, matzah sits at the heart of our Pesach Seder, from the recitation of the Hagadda over the smaller half of the middle matzah, to the eating of the afikomen at the meal’s end. Indeed, the Biblical name for Passover is “The Festival of Matzos,” for it is the matzah that embodies the essence of Exodus.
But why are there three matzohs and not four? After all the number four is a recurring theme at the Seder. We drink four cups of wine, ask Four Questions, and invite Four Sons. Our Sages explain this pattern as deriving from the, “Four expressions of redemption” in G-d’s promise to Moses: “I will bring you out…I will save you…I will redeem you… I will take you to Myself as a nation, and I will be to you a G-d.”
As the commentaries explain, the four expressions relate to the four aspects of our liberation. “I will bring out” refers to our physical removal from geographical Egypt; “I will save” means our delivery from Egyptian power; “I will redeem” is the elimination of any future enslavement; and “I will take you to Myself as a nation, and I will be to you a G-d” took place with our election as G-d’s chosen people at Mount Sinai, the purpose and end-goal of the Exodus.
So to return to our question: Why aren’t the four expressions represented in the most basic symbol of the Exodus, the matzah? The matzah, as we said, expresses both our poverty at the time of the Exodus and the haste in which the redemption came about. The two are interrelated: it was because we were impoverished, spiritually as well as materially, that our redemption had to be such a hasty affair. After 210 years living among the Egyptians we had become so entrenched in their paganism that the Exodus came at the very last possible moment. Had we remained slaves in Egypt any longer, there would have been no “people of Israel” to redeem.
Thus, we could not afford the luxury of an orderly, methodical redemption. We simply did not have the time to gradually divest ourselves of our slave mentality and pagan ways or to comprehend the significance of the role for which we were being chosen.
All we had was our faith in G-d, a faith that on Passover eve, G-d ignited by blasting our souls free of the chains that had imprisoned them in an internal slavery more nefarious than any physical bondage.
It was this faith, and this faith alone, that took us out of Egypt and set us on the road to Sinai. But faith alone was not enough. Faith can move mountains, but it cannot remake the essence of man. For faith is a transcendent force, and therein lies both its power and its limitations: it can lift a person to unprecedented heights, but these remain “other worldly” experiences, extraneous to his inner self.
Faith got us out of Egypt, but it could not get the Egypt out of us: in order to be truly and inherently free we had to change from within, through a gradual process of intellectual growth and character development. Thus following our departure from Egypt, G-d embarked us on a systematic regimen of self-refinement and transformation. Only at the end of a forty-nine-step climb (which we re-experience each year with the 49-day sefirah count) did He enter into His covenant with us at Mount Sinai. So, while the, “I will bring…save… redeem” elements of the Exodus were realized on Passover itself, but the fourth element, “I will take you to Myself as a nation” came to fruition seven weeks later, with the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai (marked each year with the festival of Shavuot).
These two stages in our redemption are personified by two staples of the Seder - matzah and wine. Matzah is appropriately the “bread of poverty, haste, and faith” aspects of the Exodus. Thus its matzah dough must be kneaded hastily, and immediately placed in the oven, not allowing the matzah to rise and assume the richness and texture of full-bodied bread. Also, in order to be valid for use at the Seder, the matzah must consist of flour and water only (a poor man’s bread indeed): any innovative attempt at a gourmet matzah (e.g. mixing in eggs or fruit juice) disqualifies it.
Thus, the matzah reflects the intellectual and emotional poverty of one who, roused solely by faith. He is as one who understands nothing, feels nothing, and “tastes” nothing save his awe before the majesty of his Creator and his firm resolve to serve Him.
In contrast, wine is the epitome of sense and experience. Wine, the palatable beverage that man savors, represents the spiritual richness of the people who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai: a people who had undergone the process of internalizing and acquiring the spiritual characteristics of the 49 G-dly attributes associated with the sefirah counting between the Festival of Freedom and the Giving of the Torah. These achievements permeated every nook and cranny of their minds and hearts.
This explains why we have three matzos and four cups of wine. With the three matzos, we re-experience the event of the Exodus itself: the flash of faith that “brought out,” “saved” and “redeemed” us from Egypt, but which fell short of enabling us to “taste” the substance of our freedom. With the four cups of wine, we savor also the fourth dimension of the Exodus, the flavor and fragrance of the spiritual maturity attained at Sinai.
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