Divrei Tzav
Chometz and Matzoh
In last week’s parsha,
the Torah introduced the four main categories of korbanos: the olah, the chatas,
the asham, and the shelamim. According to HaRav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch zt”l,
each serves a different need; the first three are primarily intended for those
Jews who feel that through past misdeeds, they are missing in their relationship
with Hashem. The shelamim, however, is unique; it is the “expression of a person
who feels himself shalem, in a condition of completeness, lacking nothing and in
this condition, and with it, he wishes to get nearer to his G-d.”
This week, we are introduced to a subcategory of the shelamim, the todah. Its rationale is different from that of the shelamim; we learn from Tehillim 107 that deliverance from four dangerous situations -- the desert, prison, illness, and the sea -- brings a person to offer a todah: . In addition, the todah includes forty loaves of bread: thirty made of matzoh, and ten of chometz. The Gemara (Menachos 76a) notes that the ten chometz loaves require the same quantity of flour as do all thirty matzoh loaves.
Says Rav Hirsch: the todah’s symbolism can be understood as follows: the offerer has experienced tzaar, pain, which is related to the word “metzar,” restriction. When he has been restored to his former powers, he then feels a shleimus. Therefore, the chometz, a fuller form of bread than matzoh, represents the person’s worldly position, restored after his brush with danger. Their number – ten, representing in haskafoh (as well as in math) a whole unit -- indicates this sense of completeness as well. However, a person must realize that despite the efforts he made to accomplish his escape/rescue/parole/recovery, his success – both in it and in all other matters – depends totally upon Hashem’s willing it so. This is symbolized by the matzoh, which, like that of Pesach, symbolizes Hashem’s intervention in our daily lives. However, the loaves are brought together; not only do these two concepts not contradict, they actually complement one other. The matzos provide direction; and the chometz provides the materials to accomplish that purpose. The offerer’s “world position receives its true value; it is just in the fact that we do thank Hashem for all our deliverances and recoveries and our happiness, and that we have to devote our regained existence in His service; that our happiness and joy in living becomes real and true, and our life full and rich.” Therefore, the amounts of flour which go into each are equal.
Now, this way of chometz-and-matzoh living holds true for nearly the entire year. For one week, however, we are forbidden to bring a todah: the week of Pesach. Why? Something is very unique about that week.
Says HaRav Shlomo Bervda shlit’a: Chazal tell us that we were utterly undeserving of yetzias Mitzrayim on our own merits. The Midrash (Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:8:2) declares, “[Klal Yisroel] said to Moshe: ‘How can we be worthy of redemption? The entire land of Mitzrayim is littered with our own avodah zaros!’ He replied, ‘Because [Hashem] desires to redeem you, He does not look at your avodah zaros.’” Astounding. Not only did we not have even one slave rebellion, led by a Spartacus or a Nat Turner. Not only did we not have the peaceful resistance of a Mahatmah Gandhi or a Martin Luther King. Not only did we not have any escape route, like an Underground Railroad. On the contrary – we had gone far beyond waving the white flag of assimilative surrender. Except for desperately clinging to a few customs, we had utterly accepted and absorbed the dominant Egyptian culture, to the point that we had become leaders in their idol-worship. Just as Berlin’s Jews of a hundred years ago strived to “out-German the Germans,” our ancestors in Mitzrayim had actually succeeded in “out-Egyptianing the Egyptians.”
Furthermore, when Hashem’s redemption did arrive, we did not get involved at all in aiding our own emancipation. While Hashem was busy hurling one blow after the next upon the Egyptians, we sat back and did . . . nothing.
Therefore, the chometz-free way of thanking Hashem comes especially on Pesach, when we have no previous status that we have fallen from, and we have made no efforts to extricate ourselves. It is the way of matzoh alone.
These concepts may form an explanation to one of the Four Questions: “On all other nights, we eat chometz and matzoh; but on this night, all matzoh?” The question’s premise itself needs elaboration: certainly one can go weeks, months, even from Pesach to Pesach, without matzoh at the table. What, therefore are the “chometz and matzoh” and the “all matzoh”?
Now it is understandable; on all other nights, when we thank Hashem for His yeshuos, we had a previous status to strive for, and we put effort into our successes. On the night of Pesach, however, we thank Hashem on an entirely different level, for He alone brought us from utter degradation and slavery into becoming The Chosen Nation.