March 19, 2021
The Meaning of Matzah
Vayikra, 5781
One time King Agrippas (11 BCE-44 CE) desired to dedicate a thousand korbanot as an offering in the Beit Hamikdash.
He sent a messenger to the Kohen Gadol carrying the following note: “Today do not bring any other offering on the mizbeach except for my offerings.”
That same day a poor man arrived at the Beit Hamikdash and desired to bring two pigeons as a sacrifice.
The Kohen Gadol said to the poor man, “I am unable to bring your sacrifice, as King Agrippas has told me not to bring any sacrifice today other than his offerings.”
The poor man answered: “My master, Kohen Gadol, I am a poor man. Every day I catch four birds. Two of the birds I bring as a sacrifice to Hashem and with the other two I nourish my family. Please, I beg of you, not to deny me the right to bring them as an offering to Hashem.”
The Kohen Gadol heard the heartfelt pleas of the poor man and his heart melted. He brought the sacrifices of the poor man.
That night King Agrippas had a dream. In the dream, a man appeared to him and told him: “You should be aware that a poor man’s offerings were brought before yours!”
The king awakened startled and angry. He rushed to the Kohen Gadol and asked him: “Is it true that you brought another person’s sacrifices before mine today?”
The Kohen Gadol told King Agrippas the story of the poor man and his birds. When the king heard the full story, he praised the Kohen Gadol and told him he had done the right thing!
(Midrash Rabbah, cited in Vekarata Leshabbat Oneg, vol.1, 141.)
Vayikra introduces us to the institution of sacrificial offerings as a way of serving Hashem.
The Book opens with the words: “The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting, saying: Speak to the Israelite people, and say to them: When any of you presents an offering of cattle to the LORD, he shall choose his offering from the herd or from the flock” (1:1-2).
However, from the very beginning, the reader of the Torah is distrustful of sacrifices. The Torah sends a clear message about the danger of bringing a sacrifice when the sacrifice of Cain is rejected:
“In the course of time, Cain brought an offering (mincha) to the LORD from the fruit of the soil; and Abel, for his part, brought the choicest of the firstlings of his flock. The LORD paid heed to Abel and his offering, but to Cain and his offering He paid no heed. Cain was much distressed and his face fell” (Bereishit 4:3-5).
Rashi tells us that Cain’s offering is rejected because he brought the worst of his crops. According to the standard rabbinic interpretation, the problem with Cain’s sacrifice is not that a plant offering is worse than an animal offering, but that Cain’s intent was not pure.
For the rabbis the essential aspect of the sacrifice is the intent. If our intent in bringing a sacrifice is to come closer to Hashem then the sacrifice is a powerful spiritual tool. If the intent is to puff up our ego, then the sacrifice is a sin that grossly reflects our spiritual defects.
This is seen clearly in the rabbinic discussion of the grain offering (mincha).
Following the Torah’s description of the voluntary animal offerings, the Torah tells us about the voluntary mincha.
There are five types of voluntary menachot outlined in this portion:
--the uncooked mincha which contains flour mixed with oil and frankincense;
--the baked mincha which can be baked into a thick loaf (chalot);
--or baked into a thin loaf (rakikin);
--the mincha fried in a flat pan (machavat);
--and finally, the mincha fried in a deep pan (marcheshet).
Even though the mincha is signifanctly less expensive than the animal offerings, it alone is singled out for praise by the rabbis.
Rashi supports this idea and notes that the word nefesh (soul) only appears by the mincha, which is the korban of a poor person (2:1).
Hashem says, “Even though the poor person has brought a small offering, I look at it as though the poor person has actually brought one’s own soul as an offering!”
The midrash tells us that one time a poor woman brought a fistful of flour to bring as a sacrifice before Hashem. This was actually much smaller than the minimum amount needed to bring as a korban.
The kohen in charge of the offerings looked at her and said, “This is a pitiful amount. You have not even brought the minimum amount required for a grain offering.”
That night the kohen had a dream: “A figure came to him in a dream and told him. You should not have rejected her offering. This offering that she brought to Hashem is very holy. It is considered as though she brought her own soul.
(Midrash Rabbah, Vayikra.)
In addition to the word nefesh there are other clues that the mincha is the most beloved of all the voluntary offerings.
The Torah tells us that there is a specific prohibition against allowing the mincha to become leaven (chametz): “No meal offering that you offer to the LORD shall be made with leaven, for no leaven or honey may be turned into smoke as an offering by fire to the LORD” (2:11).
The rabbis associate chametz with sin and the evil inclination:
After Rabbi Alexandri prayed, he would say the following: Master of the Universe, it is revealed and known before You that our will is to perform Your will, and what prevents us? On the one hand, the yeast in the dough, the evil inclination that is within every person; and the subjugation to the kingdoms on the other. May it be Your will that You will deliver us from their hands, of both the evil inclination and the foreign kingdoms, so that we may return to perform the edicts of Your will with a perfect heart (Berakhot, 17a).
By commanding the mincha to be free of chametz, the Torah is emphasizing that the mincha offering is a pure offering devoid of the arrogance that might unfortunately accompany the much more expensive gift of a large animal.
So too, the prohibition of honey in the mincha reflects the responsibility to limit our sinful desires which are symbolized by the craving for the sweetness of honey. The mincha is a pure offering devoid of sinful intent or extra cravings.
The biggest clue about the spiritual importance of the mincha is in the manner in which the Torah describes the mincha.
Three times in our passage the Torah emphasizes that the mincha is matzah.
“When you present an offering of meal baked in the oven, [it shall be of] choice flour: unleavened cakes (matzot) with oil mixed in, or matzot spread with oil. If your offering is a meal offering on a griddle, it shall be of choice flour with oil mixed in, it will be matzah” (2:4-5).
There is deep symbolism in the Torah’s emphasis that the mincha offering is matzah.
According to the rabbis, there is a very strong relationship between a mincha offering and the matzah bread that we eat on Pesach night.
The Torah defines matzah as unleavened bread. But it also describes matzah as lechem oni.
Says the Torah: “You shall not eat anything leavened with it; for seven days thereafter you shall eat unleavened bread, lechem oni” (Devarim, 16:3).
Many translate lechem oni as “bread of affliction.” This is partially based upon Rashi’s explanation to Devarim 16:3: “bread that calls to mind the affliction to which they were subjected in Egypt (Sifrei Devarim, 130:5).
But actually, the Talmud’s discussion of lechem oni, understands this phrase differently.
Shmuel said that the phrase: “leḥem oni” (Deuteronomy 16:3) means bread over which one answers matters, i.e., one recites the Haggadah over matza. That was also taught in a baraita: Leḥem oni is bread over which one answers many matters. Alternatively, in the verse, “leḥem oni” is actually written without a vav, which means a poor person. Just as it is the manner of a poor person to eat a piece of bread, for lack of a whole loaf, so too, here he should use a piece of matza. Alternatively: Just as the manner of a poor person is that he heats the oven and his wife bakes quickly, before the small amount of wood they have is used up, so too here; when baking matza, he heats the oven and his wife bakes quickly so the dough doesn’t rise (Pesachim, 115b-116a).
None of these answers focus on matzah being “bread of affliction.”
Shmuel’s answer is that matzah is the bread of “onin,” which Rashi explains to mean that it is the bread over which one recites great praises of Gd (Rashi, Pesachim, 36a). Matzah is a vehicle to express our great praise of Hashem for our redemption from slavery.
The other two approaches in the Talmud relate to matzah as the bread of the poor person. Either because we break a piece of matzah, just like a poor person will break off a whole loaf and save the larger part for later or because the poor person will be conscious of time and will make the matzah by working quickly in order to save fuel or in order to speedily return to their paying job.
The idea that matzah means food over which we praise Hashem reflects the concept that as we gather on the night of redemption we remember that all our blessings are due to Hashem. We are like a poor man expressing gratitude to our rich benefactor. Thus, all three of the Talmud’s explanations of the meaning of matzah speak to the same idea: “One who views oneself as a poor person and is humble will merit to speak many words of praise before Hashem” (Ahavat Shalom).
The idea that mincha is the offering of the poor and that matzah is the bread of the poor does not only refer to those who are actually poor in the sense of being without money. It is not only a teaching that the poor and the humble are beloved by Hashem. Our tradition stresses that they are indeed beloved. But that is not the only point here.
The point is that as one brings an offering to Hashem one must not feel the arrogance that sometimes accompanies religious success. The message is that as we celebrate Pesach –in our beautiful Seder clothing, with our beautiful Seder plates, and our deliciously prepared yontiff food—we must also feel that we are poor in deeds and that we have tremendous room for spiritual growth.
The reason we hold up the matzah high and stare at it on Seder night is to remind ourselves that we are spiritually poor. Our redemption story is not yet finished. No matter where we are in our religious life, the night of Seder has as one of its main purposes to prod us into realizing that our spiritual responsibilities before Hashem are not yet complete.
The broken piece of matzah teaches us that we always have to be striving to improve our spirituality and to track down the larger piece of matzah.
This Pesach we should be asking ourselves as we eat the matzah: what new spiritual activity will we take upon ourself. We should mediate on this question before we eat our matzah. It is the bread of the poor. We are all poor in the sense that we are all incomplete in our service of Hashem. From one Pesach to the next, how will we continue to grow spiritually?
Shmuel Herzfeld
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