By Rabbi Yosef Pinkus

Dear Rabbi,

I have read through the Haggadah many times and have a question. I understand why we eat matzoh on Passover. The Haggadah explains that it was the bread we ate in Egypt, and there was not enough time for it to rise as we left. That makes a lot of sense. But why is there a prohibition against chametz (leavened bread)? The Haggadah doesn’t give an explanation.

–Ethan

Dear Ethan,

In Jewish law there are both positive commandments and negative prohibitions. What you are pointing out is that the rationale given for the Passover commandments in the Haggadah only lends itself to a positive commandment to eat matzoh, but not to a negative prohibition against chametz. So we must look elsewhere for the reason.

It may come as a surprise to many that the leavened/unleavened distinction exists elsewhere in Torah law and is not unique to Passover. In Leviticus, there is a discussion of the “meal offering,” a relatively ordinary, low-level offering that one brings as a measure of devotion to God. It is made very clear that the flour used in this offering must be unleavened exclusively. If any leavened material is present, the offering is deemed ineligible.

Why would this be the case? This offering has nothing to do with Passover, so there must be something inherent to the concept of leavening, and its absence, that carries meaning and makes the difference in this otherwise unrelated context.

The Netziv, the 19th-century scholar and educator, offers the following suggestion. The process of creating leavened bread — taking flour and water and yeast and molding it into a loaf — requires significant amounts of human effort and intervention. The offering described is one aimed at direct connection with God, and the necessity of human intervention in preparing it would be thematically incompatible with that divinely oriented purpose. Requiring leavened bread introduces an unnecessary extra step between the person and the Divine.

Perhaps we can draw a parallel between this principle and its most prominent expression at Passover. When we were in Egypt all those years ago, huddled in our homes with a bloody streak illuminating our doorposts, waiting for G-d to come and redeem us as He had promised … this was not a miracle of inspired human intervention, as, for example, the Hanukkah miracle was. This was the pure expression of the Divine. When commemorating a miracle such as that, yes, eating the matzoh is a critical component, as the Haggadah explains. But cultivating a broad Passover environment wholly aligned with the theme of pure Divine action, without the need for human intervention, is where banning leavened products all of a sudden fits in. While there is much more to understand, this should illuminate the dual role that matzoh and chametz play in the Passover experience.

Rabbi Yosef Pinkus is a rabbi in the Dallas Community Kollel, a division of the Dallas Area Torah Association. Submit your questions to him at asktherabbi@tjpnews.com.