Dear all,
Full disclosure. I LOVE bread. Passover, therefore, is a VERY long week.
Why abstain from bread and eat Matzah? Sure, Torah teaches us that the Israelites left Egypt in such a hurry that they didn’t have enough time for their dough to rise. And our Haggadah underscores that Matzah is the bread of affliction. And so – we honor our ancestors while we acknowledge continued world afflictions.
But I find an additional spiritual reason that helps sustain me through the week.
You see – we are supposed to avoid the stuff that makes bread rise or ferment. And there is a fine line between fermenting and spoiling.
In other words, we get rid of the stuff that spoils in our souls.
Abstaining from bread (and bread products) may help focus us on the stuff we really want to get rid of:
Rancor.
Impatience.
Inability to listen.
Tunnel-vision.
Self-doubt.
etc.
Passover is our moment in time to deflate our egos and be at one with our people. Do we kneed bread? No.
But I can’t wait until next week when I can have pizza once again!
With love and shalom.
Rabbi Zach Shapiro
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