by Rabbi Rafi Goodwin, Chigwell & Hainault Synagogue
The Haggadah seems to imply that the origin of our obligation to eat matzah on Pesach was our hasty exodus from Egypt, based on Shemot 12:39: “They baked matzah-cakes from the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, as it was not leavened; for they had been driven out of Egypt and could not delay…” But didn’t God command us to eat matzah at the first-ever Seder, two weeks before the Exodus? (12:8)
The Shibolei Haleket (Rabbi Zedekiah ben Avraham, 13th century Rome) explains that God foresaw that the Egyptians would chase out the Israelites, who would then not have time for their dough (which they were anyway preparing as provisions for the long journey ahead) to rise. As a result, He commanded the Israelites to eat matzah on Seder night, to commemorate the miraculous, hasty Exodus that would yet occur!
But why didn’t the dough rise when there apparently was plenty of time for it to do so? At their first stop, a place called Sukkot, the Israelites baked the dough that had not risen. When we consider the time it took for them to set up camp and kindle fires, there was more than enough time for the dough to start rising!
The Baal HaTanya (Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, 1745-1812) suggests that the spiritual state of the Israelites at that time affected even their physical reality, their dough. Spiritually, the Israelites had ‘left Egypt’; they were uplifted and had reached a level of complete unity with God.
Leavened products, which puff up and rise, represent the ego and arrogance. In this heightened spiritual state, the dough that the Israelites had brought with them physically could not rise. When the Israelites reached that level of complete unity with God, their spiritual impact on the physical world became tangible. It is vital to know that we also have this ability through keeping the Torah to impact the physical world for the better.