Matzah’s Hidden Meaning

Rabbi, the spring is in the air, and Passover must be just around the corner.

Adam Mintz [1:36 – 1:37]: Amazing.

Geoffrey Stern [1:38 – 3:03]: I’m ready. So we always think of matzah. Why do we have matzah? In Deuteronomy of all places, It says in 16, you shall not eat anything leavened with it for seven days. Thereafter you shall eat unleavened bread, bread of distress, lechem oni. For you departed from the land of Egypt hurriedly so that you remember the day of your departure for the land of Egypt as long as you live. Now, even in the translation here, it’s not quite lechem oni. It says bread of distress. I think the traditional Hebrew school understanding of affliction, why we eat matzah, bread of affliction, it has something intrinsically to do with the slaves. And they didn’t have enough time to bake. They ran out. And that’s why we eat matzah. And then we start with the Ha Lachma Anya, as I said in the introduction, and it really doesn’t talk about we didn’t have enough time to bake this. It talks about all who are hungry, come and eat with us.

So we, as I said in the intro, are going to dive into, of all places, Vayikra, the book of the priestly code, to see how matzah was used in the sacrificial cult and glean from there, hopefully, some new insight into this whole tradition of matzah.

Adam Mintz [3:04 – 3:06]: Okay, let’s go. I’m excited.

Geoffrey Stern [3:06 – 4:38]: Okay. So we’re in a new book. It’s spanking clean. Vayikra. It says, 1, 1 to 2, speak to the children of Israel and say to them anyone. In Hebrew, it says, adam that brings near an offering to God from domestic animals, from the herd, or from the flock. You may bring near your near offering. So the first kind of sign that I got today that our reading was going to be is this is fairly rare that it doesn’t talk about an Israelite who comes. It says Adam, a human being, a person who comes. Rashi picks up on it immediately. And it says, why is the term man employed here? Since Adam also means Adam, its use suggests the following comparison. What was the characteristic of the first man? He did not offer sacrifice of anything acquired by way of robbery, since everything was his. So you too shall not offer anything acquired by way of robbery. Other explanations are it’s a man or a woman. But clearly, all of the commentators saw that this was something kind of more universal than you would have expected. And the question is, what did it come to include? Or in this case, what purity or intentionality was it going to wake us up to start thinking about? Not what you’d expect when we start talking about the Israelite temple and the Israelite sacrifices.

Adam Mintz [4:38 – 4:43]: No, that’s great. I mean, that’s right. It’s an interesting verse. Okay, let’s keep going.

Geoffrey Stern [4:44 – 7:22]: So in Leviticus 2, 1:3, it says, When a person presents an offering of meal to God, the offering shall be of choice flour. So now we’re talking about an organic, non-meat, vegetarian offering. And it starts to use va’nefesh. It means just a soul. Mincha doesn’t mean the afternoon service. Yet what it means is it’s a gift. And it says that the priest shall scoop out of it a handful of its choice flour and oil, as well as all of its frankincense. And this token portion, this az karata, he shall turn into smoke on the altar as an offering by fire of pleasing odor to God. So he’s taking part of the grain offering, and the remainder of the meal offering shall be for Aaron and his sons. And to add one more level, it says, this is as holy as it gets. So what we have is it’s a meal offering, which is not your typical offering, it seems to be not obligatory, but something that comes from just the soul of the person. It’s a gift. And then you have this dividing of it, where the Cohen takes a part, a handful of it, and the balance, the remainder of the meal, shall be for Aaron and his sons. And it’s extremely holy. And it’s a token. It represents something.

So in this one paragraph, we have so many fascinating touch points that are not only an introduction, I think, to the sacrificial cult, but because we have Passover on our mind, we have to start thinking about holding up the matzo, about breaking the matzah, about the matzah being a simple grain offering. And I think that is ultimately going to make this extremely interesting. So Rashi says the nefesh ki takriv. And when a soul or a person will offer. Nowhere is the word nefesh employed in connection with freewill offerings, except in connection with the meal offering. For who is it that usually brings a meal offering? The poor man, the Holy One, blessed be He, says, I will regard it for him as though he brought his very soul as an offering. Powerful, just powerful.

Adam Mintz [7:22 – 7:35]: Amazing. Now, of course, it shows that there’s a sliding scale when it comes to sacrifices, right? The poor person doesn’t have to bring an animal. It’s good enough for the poor person to bring flour.

Geoffrey Stern [7:35 – 9:49]: Absolutely. And this is like the most pleasing to God. So Rashi doesn’t invent this stuff. He brings it from Menachot 104B, which is the Babylonian Talmud. Amar Rav Yitzchak. Rav Yitzchak says, for what reason is the meal offering different? Rabbi, look at the Aramaic. Ma Nistanah mincha. So here we have, folks. If you thought that Ma Nistanah is just something that was in the Haggadah, no. This is how the rabbis of the Talmud talked. He wants to know what’s the difference between this meal offering and he is the source for what Rashi says. Rabbi Yitzchak goes on, what is the reason that the meal offering is differentiated from other offerings in that the rabbi says there are five types of preparations. He says it’s a parable of a flesh and blood king whose friend made a festive meal for him. But the king knows that the friend is poor. The king said to him, make for me foods from five types of fried dishes so that I may benefit from you. If you recall, Rabbi, when we brought the original verses, it talks about all sorts of fixings, all sorts of ways that you can bring this simple meal offering.

And what they were getting at is, you can do it as frankincense, you can pour oil on it. You can take your choice flour. What he’s saying again is kind of rubbing it in. This is the sacrifice of the poor and God says, you can fix it for me Creole style. You can fix it for me in batter. You can do it with oil. Because This is my favorite dish. But again, it’s the association with the poor person that I think is so profound and would have not only registered with a participant in the seder, but it had to also register with those rabbis who were creating this seder. It just struck me this year.

Adam Mintz [9:49 – 9:59]: Of course, that’s right.

And of course, I don’t care how you make it. The key is who makes it. And since the poor person makes it, I love it however you make it.

Geoffrey Stern [10:00 – 12:01]: Yeah, yeah. It’s just going to make us read at the very end the whole Ha Lachma Anya in a new fashion. The Ibn Ezra takes up the chord with Nefesh. He goes, Nefesh means a person. Scripture mentions Nefesh because the meal offering is a free will offering. And Nefesh is called willing. This is kind of like free choice. Compare it to Psalms that it says, “Tichret nedivah ruach,” let us a willing spirit uphold me.

So they’re talking about the free gift. It’s coming from the person themselves. The Rabbeinu Bahya says when a person offers a meal offering, it is remarkable that the Torah introduces the subject of the meal offering by writing “Nefesh ki takriv.” What kind of person volunteers a meal offering? A very inexpensive offering. It is the poor. By introducing the subject of the meal offering with the word Nefesh, the Torah teaches that in God’s eyes, a poor man who offers a meal offering is considered. Again, he brings the same piece of Talmud.

And then he goes on to say, the Torah also describes this offering here as a fire offering of sweet-smelling odor for the Lord. This expression occurs with all kinds of offerings to teach that quantity does not determine the value of an offering in the eyes of the Lord. All that matters is the intention of the donor to dedicate it to God. “Echad hamarbeh, v’echad hamamit.” Both the one who offers a great quantity and the one who offers a small quantity. There’s a lesson here, and that’s why it says it’s a token. It’s an azkarah. It’s just profound in this one paragraph, how much extra material it’s putting on it, it’s embellishing it.

Adam Mintz [12:01 – 12:12]: Yeah. I mean, it just, it’s emphasizing again the idea that if somebody who has trouble is able to bring something, that’s what’s really loved by God. It’s beautiful.

Geoffrey Stern [12:13 – 12:33]: And the Shadal says, what does Mincha come from? The primary root is pleasing. Take out the “mem,” and you have “nachat.” We talk about nachat ruach from our children. “Re’ah nichoach” is a beautiful aroma, a pleasing smell.

Adam Mintz [12:33 – 12:34]: He says in English.

Geoffrey Stern [12:34 – 14:08]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What I didn’t mention is, I think inherent in what they’re saying is the placement of this. You would expect at the end of all the sacrifices, it would get to the poor man’s sacrifice. But here we are in chapter two, it’s a headliner.

Rabbi, so this idea of Mincha really means a gift. If you look in Genesis 32, it says, after Jacob spent the night there, he selected from what was at hand these presents for his brother Esav: “Mincha le-Esav achiv.” Mincha is a free will offering, but it’s also a gift. And again, when we talk about gifts, what do we always say? It’s the thought that counts. It’s not how much the gift can cost. In Genesis 43, when Jacob is sending down, or Israel is sending down his children to see the viceroy, he says to them, “If you must go, do take some of the choice produce of the land in your baggage. Carry them down as a gift for the man.”

So again, Mincha is not yet the afternoon service. What it really is, is a gift to create a relationship, a reciprocal relationship with the recipients. Now, I’m going to quote a little bit from Baruch Levine, who wrote the JPS Torah Commentary and he’s a first-class academic scholar.

Adam Mintz [14:08 – 14:13]: He was a professor of Bible in NYU, so he’s a local also.

Geoffrey Stern [14:13 – 15:31]: Good for him. So he says, like the burnt offering of chapter one, it was appropriate for a variety of occasions, this grain offering, and often served as a less costly alternative to animal sacrifices. Like the burnt offering, the Mincha was also considered a most sacred offering. And this status imposed special restrictions.

And so, the other thing that I encourage us to keep in mind is that, yes, there were other religions and traditions of sacrifices. What we need to do when we study the Torah is to ask what’s different. And my argument today is this was something radical, this concept of not only was there an avenue for a poor person to give a gift, but that it was on the highest level. It was Kodesh Kodeshim.

He goes on to say, the Mincha could be prepared on a griddle, in a pan, or in an oven. He’s echoing what was said prior, and he says, actually the term Mincha has an interesting history. It does not relate to substances used in preparing the sacrifice. Its basic sense is that of a tribute or a gift.

Adam Mintz [15:31 – 15:32]: Like with Esav.

Geoffrey Stern [15:33 – 16:06]: Like with Esav that we just read about and going down to Egypt for the viceroy. Like many names given to sacrifices, the term Mincha was appropriated by priestly writers from the administrative vocabulary because it effectively expressed the subservient relationship of the worshiper toward God. At the same time, it conveyed the duty of the worshiper to present gifts to God, often in the form of sacrifices. And so what he’s starting to segue into, Rabbi.

Adam Mintz [16:28 – 16:37]: I never thought of that. But that’s so right. What a funny word for a gift, a present. But of course, it’s because you present it.

Geoffrey Stern [16:37 – 17:53]: So what he goes on to say is the term Mincha would signify what was set before or brought to a deity or ruler. Biblical evidence indicates that from early times, offerings of grain and fruit were not burned on the altar, but rather placed or set before God. Rabbi, we have a great example of the first fruits, where you simply hold up the Bikurim. You don’t burn them. So what he is saying is that there was a gradual adaptation of presentation offerings to the prevailing mode of the burnt offerings. So we have this kind of parallelism. And again, getting back to the Seder, where we start by holding up the matzah and presenting it, there was that type of a history to this special sacrifice, and if anything, it was integrated. It was an adaptation into the sacrificial cult.

He says that the older, unadapted method of presentation accounts for the name Mincha in the first place. And it is understandable that the term Mincha should refer to sacrifices of the evening or late afternoon, since grain offerings were customary in evening rituals.

Adam Mintz [17:53 – 17:54]: I don’t know what that means.

Geoffrey Stern [17:54 – 17:58]: Means he’s the professor. We gotta take his word for this.

Adam Mintz [17:58 – 18:01]: I think so, because I don’t know what that line means, really.

Geoffrey Stern [18:02 – 18:17]: We do know that in Psalms 141, it says, “Take my prayer as an offering of incense, my upraised hands as an evening sacrifice.” So, there was a correlation between giving.

Adam Mintz [18:17 – 18:19]: This and the Mincha offering.

Geoffrey Stern [18:19 – 18:46]: Okay, maybe, Rabbi, it was left for the end of the day because, let’s face it, this was not the wealthy giver. This is not the person who came with the red carpet. But again, I encourage us all to think in terms of what happens on Passover. As far as I know, sacrifices were not given at nighttime. The exclusion, the exception, was the Paschal sacrifice, possibly unless it was given at the.

Adam Mintz [18:46 – 18:51]: It was given during the day, but it was eaten at night.

Geoffrey Stern [18:51 – 19:22]: And you have this offering of grain, which was also done towards the end of the day. I just was reading this through the lens of what we do at the Seder. And it gave a whole new light to what had in the past been something totally unrelated in terms of the biblical matter to the concept of a poor man’s bread and what the implications were. So we have these unleavened cakes,

Geoffrey Stern [19:22 – 19:53]: chalot matzot. I once baked matzah with Sephardim. And when we were finished, they were cakes. They weren’t hard. You could fold them.

When Hillel made the Hillel sandwich, he literally was able to fold the matzah over the haroset, again breaking another preconception that we have. One of the things that the Rabbi said that threw me for a real loop was he compared the word matzah to the Greek matzah or barley cake. And he doesn’t give any reason why the Greek and the Hebrew or the Semitic languages should use a very similar word. He just kind of throws it out there. But maybe this was fairly universal. Who knows?

The other thing that happens, Rabbi, I already talked about the fact that the process is where the kohen takes part of it to sacrifice. Kind of like we do today when you take, when Sharon takes challah, she takes a part off and she throws it into the fire, but the rest gets eaten. Those are called patot ototopitim. This is where Pitta comes from. These are pieces. This was made to be shared, was made to be broken. I just found it fascinating, this idea of breaking. Rashi says this is including all the meal offerings that are baked. And it is the law of breaking into pieces.

It includes the lechem mishneh. This idea of breaking it was part and parcel of the grain offering. And I went to an amazing book written by a sociologist named Marcel Maus, and it’s called “The Gift.” It talks about all different types of relationships and the way we create relationships by gifting. It says one way of gifting is where we’ve seen this with the Brit Bein HaBetarim, the covenant between the pieces. An object generally of little value and azkarot is given to the other contracting party. It will be returned. It’s part of making an oath. This life token, the thing passed on in this way, is indeed very much infused with the individuality of the donor. The fact that it is in the hand of the recipient stimulates the contracting party to carry out the contract to redeem himself by redeeming the things, it includes meals.

So I think there’s also a universal aspect of this gift-giving ceremony where you break something in half. It’s kind of like making a covenant, like making a reciprocal relationship that I found doesn’t occur with any other of the sacrifices. And then, of course, the last thing.

Adam Mintz: What do you make of that, by the way?

Geoffrey Stern I mean, we always talk about why do you break the matzah? And a lot of us say that poor people, they save something for the next day, right?

Adam Mintz: Well, they can’t afford a whole loaf. They just have a piece, right. I come from Europe. In Europe, you buy loaves of bread, but, you know, if you’re poor, you just get a piece, not a whole loaf.

Geoffrey Stern I think so. But after I read Maus, I was thinking more in terms of establishing a reciprocal relationship. You know, when the power goes down in New York or in Connecticut, Con Edison sends their trucks here. The way you create that net, so to speak, the social net, is you make sure to give to your neighbor so that when you’re in need, your neighbor gives to you. And I saw that kind of in this breaking of the poor man’s bread as a gift. It was creating these reciprocal relationships that bind us all together. That’s how I read it kind of this year because clearly, this was different from other types of burnt sacrifices.

As we finish, I want to save time to read a Haggadah that was written in 1941 by Mordecai Kaplan. But before we do, I think this question of Leaven and Unleavened. It seems that Leaven was forbidden on the altar for anything that was burnt. That’s right. Leaven, the academic scholar, says a connection between the prohibition stated here and the Passover laws is certainly to be assumed. And yet nowhere is the matzah of Passover explicitly associated with the requirements of grain offerings.

Adam Mintz: So, Rabbi, that’s fascinating.

Geoffrey Stern We are going down new territory here. We are trying, and we’re not going to connect all the dots. But if we’re successful, we’re giving a new lens to see this whole ritual of why it’s called lechem oni. So I want to finish. We go back to the seder now. You hold up the matzah, you break it in half, just as you do with the grain offering, and then you say this amazing statement, Halachma Anya. And,

I am going to read, based on the research that we just did, how Mordecai Kaplan, who wrote the new Haggadah in 1941 while World War II was on before the State of Israel. This is how he interpreted this ritual. He said, “Behold the matzah, symbol of the bread of poverty our ancestors were made to eat in their affliction when they were slaves in the land of Egypt. Let it remind us of our fellow men who are today poor and hungry. Would that they could come and eat with us. Would that all who are in need could partake of this Passover feast.

Let us resolve to strive unceasingly for that blessed day when all will share equally in the joy of the feast, when poverty will be no more, when Eretz Yisrael will be upbuilt, and when all mankind will enjoy freedom, justice, and peace. Let my people go reading that. So this I’m reading out of the original New Haggadah that I grew up with because before I became very religious and told my parents to use a traditional one, he says, “We have dedicated this festival tonight to the dream and the hope of freedom. The dream of hope that has filled the hearts of men from the time our Israelite ancestors went out of Egypt.”

People have suffered; nations have struggled to make this dream come true. Now we dedicate ourselves to the struggle for freedom through the sacrifice be great and hardships many. We shall not rest until the chains that enslave all men are broken. But the freedom we strive for means more than broken chains. It means liberation from all those enslavements that warp the spirit and blight the mind, that destroy the soul. And even though they leave the flesh alive. For men can be enslaved in more ways than one. Men can be enslaved to themselves when they let emotions sway them to their hurt. When they permit harmful habits to tyrannize over them. They are slaves when laziness or cowardice keeps them from doing what they know to be right.

When ignorance blinds them so like Samson, they can only turn round and round in meaningless drudgery. They are slaves when envy, bitterness, and jealousy sour their joys and darken the brightness of their contentment. They are slaves to themselves and shackled by the chains of their own forging. This resonated with me in terms of the stuff we were talking about. A poor person is pure. He’s not a slave to all these addictions. Men can be enslaved by poverty and inequality. When the fear of need drives them to dishonesty and violence, to defending the guilty and accusing the innocent, they are slaves. When the work men do enriches others, but leaves them in want of strong houses for shelter, nourishing food for themselves and their children, and warm clothes to keep out the cold, they are slaves.

He’s really focused on the imperfections of poverty in a way that I think reads so beautifully and directly from this simple offering of grain. Men can be enslaved by intolerance. When Jews are forced to give up their Jewish way of life, to abandon their Torah, to neglect their sacred festivals, to leave off rebuilding their ancient homeland, they are slaves. When they must deny that they are Jews in order to get work, they are slaves. When they must live in constant fear of unwarranted hate and prejudice, they are slaves. How deeply these enslavements have scarred them.

The world, the wars, the destruction, the suffering, the waste. Pesach calls us to be free. Free from the tyranny of our own selves, free from the enslavement of poverty and inequality, free from the corroding hate that eats away the ties which unite mankind. To me, this is the simple grain offering. This is the message in spades.

Geoffrey Stern [28:48 – 28:51]: This is the message in spades.

Adam Mintz [28:51 – 29:01]: That’s remarkable. I know the Haggadah, but I never. I don’t remember this explanation of Ha Lachma Anya. That’s the best. I’m going to use that in our Seder this year.

Geoffrey Stern [29:01 – 29:23]: I put it in the show notes. It’s all there, as well as a link to a PDF that describes the excommunication of Mordechai Kaplan for making a new Haggadah. So I wish you all a great start to the Book of Vayikra and preparing for the Seder in the week and a half ahead. Have a Shabbat Shalom. See you next week.

Adam Mintz [29:23 – 29:25]: Shabbat Shalom. See everybody next week.