Misconceptions
Matzo – the Jewish spin
A. Matzo, the traditional flatbread used during
Passover as prescribed in the Bible, (Exodus ch.12 and Deuteronomy ch. 16) is
not a Jewish invention.
The recipe: mix flour with water (or oil:
spices optional), knead and then press flat for quick heating in
an oven.
It is not only the simplest bread
formula, but one known from earliest times and around the world.
The ancient Mesopotamians and ancient Egyptians are
known to have made such flatbread. And
some 75 different flatbreads are listed by Wikipedia from traditional cultures
in the Middle East, Africa, India, China, southern and northern Europe, Mexico
and South America. Tortillas and wraps are
just two common American examples as is the melodious sounding Sicilian carta da musica. (See Wikipedia, “Flatbread”)
The popularity of such flatbreads is a testament to
the fact the recipe is the fastest (and cheapest)
way to make bread; requiring only a few minutes to mix and then heat. (Matzo
must be completed within 18 minutes to prevent natural rising, but even this is
more than enough time for small quantities as it takes only 2-3 minutes in the
oven. (http://judaism.about.com/library/3_howto/ht_makematzah.htm “How to make matzah”)
In comparison, leaven bread is fussy and very time
consuming. Yeast must be kept at a proper temperature or it dies, the kneaded dough
must be allowed to rise slowly, checked, and left for a second time to
rise, and finally baked. Then it must be
left to cool down.
Minimum times listed on answers.yahoo.com are from 1 hour to 3 hours!!
(Check the
following on-line recipes and bake time answers: http://www.bhg.com/recipes/how-to/bake/how-to-make-yeast-bread/
“How to Make Yeast Bread” and
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081008162932AA0RPsF” How long does it take a bread maker
to make the bread?”.)
B. The Bible also
mentions matzo four hundred years before the Exodus.
A tradition, repeated in the Passover Haggadah in the medieval poem
called “And You Shall Say: This is the Feast of Pesach” includes the following
lines: (Art Scroll Haggadah, p. 205 for authorship and era; p. 206-207
for the quotes below.)
He [Abraham] entertained the [3] angels of God with unleaven cakes on Pesach …
Lot was saved from among them [men of Sodom] as he has baked unleaven cakes for the angels on Pesach …
These
readings of Genesis ch. 18 and ch 19 have long been accepted based on rabbinic
midrash, but to interpret these passages as such is well beyond normal logic
and the plain meaning of the texts.
The
reasoning seems as follows:
In
ch. 19 the word matzo is used for the feast Lot made for
the two messengers from God and it nowhere else appears expect for the Passover
Seder and exodus. So Lot must have,
through divine inspiration, been celebrating the Exodus 400 years in
advance. Since these two messengers
(with a departed third member) had just come from visiting Abraham that
morning, and Abraham also fed them a festive meal, Abraham too must have been celebrating Passover with
matzo – even though the word never appears in the Abrahamic section.
However, the Bible not only does
not use the word ‘matzo’ in the Abrahamic section, Genesis 18: 1-8. Instead,
the single word ‘lechem’, the normal term for yeast bread, is Abraham’s exact
wording to the messengers in verse 5. And
in verse 6, where Abraham instructs Sarah in detail how to make this bread --
in the 7 words used to describe the type and quantity of fine flour to use --Abraham
only uses the word ‘cakes’.
Hardly
what one would expect if ‘matzo’ was intended.
As
for Lot, having him practice Pesach would be extraordinary to say the least. 400 years in advance is one problem. More importantly,
Lot was not a member of the Jewish people upon whom this commandment later applied. He, like Esau and Ishmael, was a tangential
relative. He had already separated
himself from Abraham, his uncle, and had chosen to live, in of all places,
Sodom, the notorious city worthy of Divine destruction.
Ch. 19, verse 3 states “ … he made a feast for
them and baked matzos, and they ate.”
The entire passage makes clear
that speed was the key to choosing matzo over leaven bread making. The messengers arrived at evening
and Lot had to rush them indoors for their safety and suddenly make
them a meal.
(King James Version)
19:1 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;
19:1 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;
19:3 And he pressed upon them greatly;
and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a
feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.
Under the circumstances, Lot did not have the luxury of time to
order fresh meat as did Abraham: to have a calf or other meat slaughtered, gutted, skinned and then slow
cooked in some manner, nor the luxury of time for yeast bread’s slow
rising. So he made them ‘quick’ bread --
matzo.
C. לחם
עני (“lechim oni) – “bread
of affliction” or “the poor man’s bread” or ‘simple bread”?
The
description of matzo as לחם עני (lechim oni) does not appear in
the Exodus text where the Seder ritual meal and matzo bread are presented in
detail. Rather, the phrase is only used
in the brief reference by Moses in Deuteronomy 16:3.
3.Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it;
seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even
the bread of affliction; for thou camest
forth out of the land of Egypt in haste:
that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of
Egypt all the days of thy life. (King James Version)
The Hebrew root of עני has three meanings. It means poverty, affliction/suffering
and humble/meek. (See http://biblesuite.com/hebrew/6035.htm).
Of the three
readings, the ‘suffering’ theme is the standard English and Jewish interpretation,
and the basis of rabbinic homilies.
English
translations of this verse use “affliction” or “sorrow” following the
King James Version and its Latin source, the Vulgate. (See the Hebrew
text, the Vulgate and various English translations at http://www.stnicholasowen.co.uk/bibles_net/hebrewparallel/B05C016.htm )
Latin
Vulgate
16:3 non comedes in eo panem fermentatum septem diebus comedes absque fermento adflictionis panem quoniam in pavore egressus es de Aegypto ut memineris diei egressionis tuae de Aegypto omnibus diebus vitae tuae
16:3 non comedes in eo panem fermentatum septem diebus comedes absque fermento adflictionis panem quoniam in pavore egressus es de Aegypto ut memineris diei egressionis tuae de Aegypto omnibus diebus vitae tuae
Latin adflictionis
gives us the English word affliction.
Affliction is
also the interpretation in the much earlier Greek Septuagint’s use of
the word κακώσεως
, as shown in the Wikipedia bilingual translation and concordance (See http://en.katabiblon.com/us/index.php?text=LXX&book=Dt&ch=16
and http://lexicon.katabiblon.com/?search=κακώσεως).
Jewish tradition
also uses the affliction/suffering interpretation. Rashi, the great medieval
commentary, states on this verse that ‘lechim oni” means bread of suffering or
affliction. And this is the view
espoused by the Vilna Goan, Ibn Ezra and Sforno who state that Pharaoh forced
the Jews to only eat hard, unsatisfying and indigestible matzo throughout their
decades of enslavement -- to increase their suffering. (Art Scroll Passover
Haggadah (2nd ed.), p.67, Art Scroll, The Chumash, Stone
ed., p. 1021)
In fact, this
slave/suffering reading is the opening text of the Passover Seder Haggadah.
The Aramaic Ha Lachma Anya … passage,
composed after the destruction of the Second Temple, i.e., post – 70 C.E., (See
Art Scroll Passover Haggadah, pp. 66) describes matzo as:
“This is the
bread of affliction that our fathers ate in the land of Egypt. Whoever is
hungry, let him come and eat; .… This year we are slaves, next year free men!” (Art Scroll Passover Haggadah, pp.
66-69) [my red italics].
But any straightforward reading of the Exodus and Deuteronomy texts shows,
as the Maharal points out, (see below, and as noted by Art Scroll,P.H.,
p.67) the use of matzo was not related
to decades of being slaves in Egypt but necessitated
at the first Seder and the exodus by the rush to prepare the meal
and then flee.
This is clear from Exodus verse 11 as the Seder meal was to be
prepared and eaten in a rush:
“your loins girded, your shoes on
your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste”.
And
regarding the actual departure thereafter, verses verse 33, 34 and 39 state:
33“And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they
might send them out of the land in haste;” 34And the people took their dough before it was
leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their
shoulders.
Similarly,
Deuteronomy 16:3 (quoted above) which is the only source for the expression,
stresses matzo in terms of the haste involved and not the years of
slavery.
So matzo was not just eaten at the
first Seder but also in the day(s) thereafter.
As Exodus 12: 34 and 39 state,
when leaving Egypt and making food for their next day’s meal(s), the Jews
had their normal bread making throughs stored away, and in the abnormal
situation they made matzo again -- the super quick bread that could be baked while on
the move. (Yeast breads must be kept
still and unshaken to bake properly.)
As the Maharal notes,
the phraseלחם עני
cannot refer to the bread the Jewish slaves ate over
the years of their suffering.
Otherwise the text would not have spent two verses explaining why matzo was
made when rushing out of Egypt – if it
had been their normal form of bread (http://www.torah.org/learning/maharal/pesach2.html, Maharal, Pesach #3).
--------------------------------------
The matzo
references in Exodus ch 12 (King James Version) are as follows;
---------------------------------------------------------
In summary, matzo
was not a new, Passover innovation, and as argued above, the plain meaning of
the texts make clear matzo was not the form of bread the enslaved Jews normally
ate.
It was not slave’s
‘bread of suffering’ but simple and plain ‘quick bread’ (that normally the very
poor would to make) – in the absence of the luxury of time and the rush to
freedom.
So, is this
most important of Jewish holidays, the birth of the nation, hallmarked and
named after merely the equivalent of a rushed TV dinner micro waved in 6
minutes or a last minute, rushed pizza delivery order? Is there no greater significance and
symbolism to Passover matzo as ‘quick bread’?
Matzo, after
all, is Passover’s defining component: giving its name to the
holiday, and continuing as the one requirement for the entire seven days of Pesach–
as the Pascal lamb and bitter herbs were only required for the first evening
Seder.
The key to the
answer, I believe, is in Maimonides’ 13 Principals of Faith:
#12. I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the
Messiah, and though he tarry, I will wait daily for his coming. (J. H. Hertz translation)
By all logic,
the first Seder, as a celebratory feast
with family, friends and neighbours, should have included alongside the luxury
of meat from a delicate lamb or kid,
similarly luxurious bread: leaven bread, the bread those smell when baking or when
cut fresh enthralls the nose and whose crispy crust and soft interior delights
the palate.
But it was not
so.
The
announcement by Moses that a new, 10th plague would end their enslavement,
instantly, must have been hard to believe.
The Jews had been oppressed for decades, the coming of Moses had led to
increased suffering through more burdensome labour, and the coming of nine plagues,
one after the other – over a year’s time – had not led to freedom.
But following
Gods words to Moses, and in their faith that the redemption would be immediate
and not delayed, the people made matzos.
And in an
instant, the redemption arrived.
So, in a
sense, making matzos was a test of faith as well as a practical
necessity. By making matzo instead of leaven bread for that first festive meal,
they showed their faith that their liberation would be now and instant
– as promised by God.
The first
redemption came when our ancestors made simple, ‘quick bread’ for their first Seder
celebration and the days of their flight.
May all the
Jewish bakers of the world be prepared to do the same: on the imminent arrival
of the Messiah and the return of the entire Jewish people to the Holy Land for
the rebuilding of the Temple.
Further Note:
Matzos 1 Samuel 28:7-25
When King
Saul sought out a woman who was a spiritualist to predict the outcome of his
battle the next day against the Philistine, he came to her disguised and in the
dark of night.
As he had
been fasting all day, he fainted after the vision of Samuel (verse 20) and the woman fed him and his two
attendants.
1 Samuel 28:
Notice she
quickly took flour and made MATZAH מַצּוֹת.
There is no
indication in I Samuel 28-31 that it was
the time of Passover nor
would one expect a probably non-Jewish ‘heretic’ to practice Passover in any case.
She simply
made ancient quick-bread = Matzos. After
all, it was now the middle of the night: when there is no sun to leaven/ferment
standing dough over hours.
Wrong time of day. And no luxury of time to wait.
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