There’s been a question perplexing me for about two weeks now. As we say, “On all other nights, we eat both chametz and matzah, but on this night we eat only matzah.”
Here’s my question: what’s the the difference between the chametz and the matzah? Or rather, what’s the difference between the carbs of Pesach and the carbs the rest of the year?
Usually the jokes before, during, and after Pesach are about craving carbs. However, as I realised and then heard my rebbetzin say a few days later conversationally, all we eat is carbs during Pesach.
What else would you classify matzah? It is bread, after all.
Really, then, what we crave isn’t carbs at all but chametz, or in English, leaven. That is what we’ve spent weeks purging from our homes, cars, souls, lives — literally anything we can get our hands on. For Pesach, the general rule of thumb is if it can be cleaned, it’s going to be. Can you pour boiling water onto it? You bet, and you will.
Why then are we craving this food we are forbidden to partake throughout the holiday?
My first inclination is maybe we’re just ill prepared and don’t know what to cook because there are a gazillion ways to make matzah taste great, but really it’s that we want what we can’t have. It’s human nature. Just read the rest of the Torah (and Tanakh for that matter).
A wise man did once say, “I do what I hate and I hate what I do,” referring to this warring between our sinful desires and striving to perform mitzvot.
What then makes food with leaven taste so delicious to us? Why does the clean bread of matzah begrudge us to eat? Is there truly something more chemically delicious about cakes, breads, cookies, corn chips, tortillas, na’an than just regular matzah? While I would enjoy breaking down the differences in molecular structure, flavours, tastes, etc., I don’t have a lab and am not a chemist, so I really don’t even know what I’m talking about.
What I do know is traditionally leaven is likened to sin. (Selah.)
Could it be then that we crave sin?
But why? Is it delicious? Is it good? I think it tastes amazing in the moment, but sours the soul.
The root for chametz חָמֵץ in Hebrew is חמץ, which also spells another word, חמוץ (chumootz) which translates to sour. Therefore, it could be, too, that if we eat too much chametz, it sours our bodies just as sin sours our souls. This could be why Pesach is also so cleansing.
Why then is it different? Why then do we crave leaven? Is it a physical craving or a transcendent craving of something metaphysical, spiritual?
Perhaps there are no answers, not yet. While we (or I because I haven’t done all my research) might not be able to fully understand right now the molecular differences of food with or without chametz, let’s just theorise it’s healthier to eat matzah (sort of like how some people say it’s healthier to not eat gluten, which I think those people are wrong); though, initially it may not taste as scrumptious.
Thus, as we feel the physical difference during this time of the year, our bodies is awakened through this fast of unleavened bread to our natural cravings for leaven, maybe we should be focusing on what else we may be craving during this time.
If man does not live by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of Hashem, then are we feasting on those words? Are we delighting in them? Are we partaking of the banquet he prepares for us in the presence of our enemies, in the presence of distress and danger?
On what are we feasting?
Whatever you’re eating, doing, or celebrating, !מועד טובֿ מועדים לשמחה
May you have a good holiday!
The Terrible & the Beautiful
My Brilliant Mess
Accepting My Own Neurodivergence
There is Still Hope
