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I hate it. Every year I would curse my ancestors because they couldn't wait 5 minutes for the bread to rise. I warn every person that is running away from war

by yard2010 3y ago

I hate it. Every year I would curse my ancestors because they couldn't wait 5 minutes for the bread to rise. I warn every person that is running away from war or slavery - prepare your food well!! Don't create some future stupid obligatory traditions for your offspring!!

dgacmu 3y ago
Isn't it as much a problem of duration? The first piece of matzo is great. :-)
xyzelement 3y ago
As someone who educated himself as a Jew in adulthood, the beauty of matza is its metaphoric representation of humility. Leavening represents ego rising and avoiding it for the 8 days of passover is a physical reminder of humility. Prior to passover, we do a careful search of our household to find and remove leavened bread, even small bits. This is analogous to soul-searching for things within us where ego dominates and gets in the way of the kind of people we want to be. The symbolism of finding and taking the effort to remove these traces (or large chunks) of ego is powerful, and passover is a great periodic reminder to take this kind of inner inventory. And then on the physical level, and still related to ego, I think there's a lot of little "addictions" that we have as people. "I can't live w/o a muffin in the morning" or whatever is pretty benign as far as addictions go, but even the difficulty of giving that up shows how much of our behavior is ruled by little irrelevant things in the world. And then our ability to get over that and just eat matzo for 8 days proves to ourselves that we can ultimately overcome these addictions that they don't matter. A modern version of that might be "for 8 days, you can only use a feature phone, no touchscreen devices!" :) Now that I said all of this, I have to fess up that I love the crunchiness of Matza which I for the first time tasted around age 9 when the Soviet Union was opening up and someone brought us Matza from the US. It was literally my first "taste" of religion. EDIT: to tie it together - passover is a holiday about freedom. On the literal level, exodus from slavery. On the metaphorical level, liberation from ego-domination and unconscious subjugation to the world instead of making active choices. Your ability to chose to just eat matza for 8 days is an assertion of your freedom over that. Your ego, and the world, would rather you load up on bagels - but you are somehow finding within yourself to forego that because of higher aspiration (even if that aspiration is merely to continue traditions of your ancestors) - and that is amazing and powerful in and of itself.
- delichon 3y ago
  I hadn't made the connection between Pesach and Yom Kippur but they share this asceticism, and the atonement of Yom Kippur echoes the humility of the Passover "cleansing of the soul" ritual. I've explicitly used the Yom Kippur fast as a tool to chip away at addictions. As a profoundly irreligious person I can still value these ceremonies for secular reasons.
  - klipt 3y ago
    Religions are a product of (cultural) evolution by natural selection. Nothing supernatural about religion ;-)
throw478337 3y ago
The bread they made on the way out of eygpt did not taste the same as what is made now. It was most likely still soft as opposed to the hard bread of today as the ovens they had were much lower temperature.
- aklemm 3y ago
  This doesn't sound right. Got a source for what kind of ovens they had?
  - noam_k 3y ago
    This is a somewhat generally accepted theory. (I don't have sources handy, though.) What makes modern matzah hard is the flour/water ratio. When more water is added, the bread is also softer. The issue with soft matzah is that it spoils quickly, and if you need bread for 7 days you need to make matzah during Passover. Okay, you say, so make some matzah on Passover, right? But matzah is tricky, because if enough time passes between mixing the water and flour, it is considered leavened. (This is a religious definition, not a physical one.) Merely owning leavened bread is prohibited, so European Jews made dry matzah to prevent unfortunate slip-ups. This custom started within the last few hundred years (again, I don't have sources, so I'm not sure about exact dates). Yemenite Jews still use soft matzah. Edit: part of the Passover story mentions Hillel, who would wrap matzah around his Passover offering and bitter herbs. This definitely indicates soft matzah, but is much later than the Exodus itself.
    - compsciphd 3y ago
      a few notes: there's a very early christian debate (I think settled at an early church council) if the bread of the eucharist (which many associate with matza) could be soft, or had to be hard like a cracker. So, either they were trying to distinguish it from matza (which doesn't seem to be the case), or there was crispy matza in the 1500-2000 year ago range. Personally, I find soft matza to be terrible. our appreciation of food comes from both flavor and texture. Matza being just flour and water (no salt in traditional doughs), means it has terrible flavor (bread really really needs salt to taste not bad). Soft matza has no texture, while at least the crispy matza does. so, a) I don't think crispy matza is a really a modern invention (they had analogues a long time ago) and b) there's a reason we moved en masse to crispy matza, its just more enjoyable overall.
maximinus_thrax 3y ago
> I hate it. I'm not Jewish and I absolutely love Matzo. It's always on sale before Passover and I usually buy quite a few boxes and eat all of them. I use them either as crackers or even crumbled into soups or borscht. I think it tastes amazing for how simple it is. This year I'll try making a layered cake!
- ars 3y ago
  "on sale" = "available to purchase". But if you want to define it as "on sale" = "cheaper price" then buy it right after Passover and stock up - it will last for more than year, so you can buy a lot.
account42 3y ago
No one forces you into stupid traditions except you yourself.
- ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
  Because religious peer pressure isn't a thing.
math_dandy 3y ago
I look forward to my annual eight day matzahpizza orgy.
rsynnott 3y ago
Is the matzo (vs other unleavened bread) actually required, or just traditional? Like, _nice_ unleavened bread is a thing.
- ars 3y ago
  The definition of the word Matzo is "unleavened bread", so your question is not well formed.

dgacmu 3y ago

Isn't it as much a problem of duration? The first piece of matzo is great. :-)

xyzelement 3y ago

As someone who educated himself as a Jew in adulthood, the beauty of matza is its metaphoric representation of humility. Leavening represents ego rising and avoiding it for the 8 days of passover is a physical reminder of humility. Prior to passover, we do a careful search of our household to find and remove leavened bread, even small bits. This is analogous to soul-searching for things within us where ego dominates and gets in the way of the kind of people we want to be. The symbolism of finding and taking the effort to remove these traces (or large chunks) of ego is powerful, and passover is a great periodic reminder to take this kind of inner inventory. And then on the physical level, and still related to ego, I think there's a lot of little "addictions" that we have as people. "I can't live w/o a muffin in the morning" or whatever is pretty benign as far as addictions go, but even the difficulty of giving that up shows how much of our behavior is ruled by little irrelevant things in the world. And then our ability to get over that and just eat matzo for 8 days proves to ourselves that we can ultimately overcome these addictions that they don't matter. A modern version of that might be "for 8 days, you can only use a feature phone, no touchscreen devices!" :) Now that I said all of this, I have to fess up that I love the crunchiness of Matza which I for the first time tasted around age 9 when the Soviet Union was opening up and someone brought us Matza from the US. It was literally my first "taste" of religion. EDIT: to tie it together - passover is a holiday about freedom. On the literal level, exodus from slavery. On the metaphorical level, liberation from ego-domination and unconscious subjugation to the world instead of making active choices. Your ability to chose to just eat matza for 8 days is an assertion of your freedom over that. Your ego, and the world, would rather you load up on bagels - but you are somehow finding within yourself to forego that because of higher aspiration (even if that aspiration is merely to continue traditions of your ancestors) - and that is amazing and powerful in and of itself.

delichon 3y ago
I hadn't made the connection between Pesach and Yom Kippur but they share this asceticism, and the atonement of Yom Kippur echoes the humility of the Passover "cleansing of the soul" ritual. I've explicitly used the Yom Kippur fast as a tool to chip away at addictions. As a profoundly irreligious person I can still value these ceremonies for secular reasons.
- klipt 3y ago
  Religions are a product of (cultural) evolution by natural selection. Nothing supernatural about religion ;-)

throw478337 3y ago

The bread they made on the way out of eygpt did not taste the same as what is made now. It was most likely still soft as opposed to the hard bread of today as the ovens they had were much lower temperature.

aklemm 3y ago
This doesn't sound right. Got a source for what kind of ovens they had?
- noam_k 3y ago
  This is a somewhat generally accepted theory. (I don't have sources handy, though.) What makes modern matzah hard is the flour/water ratio. When more water is added, the bread is also softer. The issue with soft matzah is that it spoils quickly, and if you need bread for 7 days you need to make matzah during Passover. Okay, you say, so make some matzah on Passover, right? But matzah is tricky, because if enough time passes between mixing the water and flour, it is considered leavened. (This is a religious definition, not a physical one.) Merely owning leavened bread is prohibited, so European Jews made dry matzah to prevent unfortunate slip-ups. This custom started within the last few hundred years (again, I don't have sources, so I'm not sure about exact dates). Yemenite Jews still use soft matzah. Edit: part of the Passover story mentions Hillel, who would wrap matzah around his Passover offering and bitter herbs. This definitely indicates soft matzah, but is much later than the Exodus itself.
  - compsciphd 3y ago
    a few notes: there's a very early christian debate (I think settled at an early church council) if the bread of the eucharist (which many associate with matza) could be soft, or had to be hard like a cracker. So, either they were trying to distinguish it from matza (which doesn't seem to be the case), or there was crispy matza in the 1500-2000 year ago range. Personally, I find soft matza to be terrible. our appreciation of food comes from both flavor and texture. Matza being just flour and water (no salt in traditional doughs), means it has terrible flavor (bread really really needs salt to taste not bad). Soft matza has no texture, while at least the crispy matza does. so, a) I don't think crispy matza is a really a modern invention (they had analogues a long time ago) and b) there's a reason we moved en masse to crispy matza, its just more enjoyable overall.

maximinus_thrax 3y ago

> I hate it. I'm not Jewish and I absolutely love Matzo. It's always on sale before Passover and I usually buy quite a few boxes and eat all of them. I use them either as crackers or even crumbled into soups or borscht. I think it tastes amazing for how simple it is. This year I'll try making a layered cake!

ars 3y ago
"on sale" = "available to purchase". But if you want to define it as "on sale" = "cheaper price" then buy it right after Passover and stock up - it will last for more than year, so you can buy a lot.

account42 3y ago

No one forces you into stupid traditions except you yourself.

ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
Because religious peer pressure isn't a thing.

math_dandy 3y ago

I look forward to my annual eight day matzahpizza orgy.

rsynnott 3y ago

Is the matzo (vs other unleavened bread) actually required, or just traditional? Like, _nice_ unleavened bread is a thing.

ars 3y ago
The definition of the word Matzo is "unleavened bread", so your question is not well formed.