Dear Friends,
So, what’s the problem with leavening, after all?
Heading into Passover, and reading this week’s Torah portion, it is a good question.
Of course, the teaching from Passover is that we exited Egypt so hastily that our bread had no time to rise. Thus, we ate unleavened bread, and we commemorate Passover every year with refraining from leavened products for the seven or eight days of the festival.
Yet, is that the whole story? Or is there more?
This week’s Torah portion also forbids leavened products for the meal offering, one of the regular sacrificial offerings in the ancient Temple. “No meal-offering, which you shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven.” [Leviticus 2:11]
Why?
There is no clear answer, yet the rabbinic sages offered homiletical explanations. One commentary suggested that leavening was considered a symbol of corruption. Another suggested that man’s tendency to sin was a “moral fermentation.” The implication is that just as bread or grain inflates and rises with gasses from yeast yielding fermentation, so too the human being is susceptible to self-inflation due to one’s own behavioral or moral bloating. I trust we all have encountered individuals who are prone to braggadocio or arrogance.
Perhaps, then, Passover’s prohibition on leavened products is less about a speedy departure from Mitzrayim, than it is about a proper caution to our own proclivities. Commonly, the pious individual is recognized for humility and personal restraint. We admire such persons. And, we equally commonly bristle at one who has a bloated estimation of oneself. We can lose patience with such persons.
Thus, wonderfully, Passover offer a wonderful re-understanding. Simply – let’s avoid the leavening!
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
So, what’s the problem with leavening, after all?
Heading into Passover, and reading this week’s Torah portion, it is a good question.
Of course, the teaching from Passover is that we exited Egypt so hastily that our bread had no time to rise. Thus, we ate unleavened bread, and we commemorate Passover every year with refraining from leavened products for the seven or eight days of the festival.
Yet, is that the whole story? Or is there more?
This week’s Torah portion also forbids leavened products for the meal offering, one of the regular sacrificial offerings in the ancient Temple. “No meal-offering, which you shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven.” [Leviticus 2:11]
Why?
There is no clear answer, yet the rabbinic sages offered homiletical explanations. One commentary suggested that leavening was considered a symbol of corruption. Another suggested that man’s tendency to sin was a “moral fermentation.” The implication is that just as bread or grain inflates and rises with gasses from yeast yielding fermentation, so too the human being is susceptible to self-inflation due to one’s own behavioral or moral bloating. I trust we all have encountered individuals who are prone to braggadocio or arrogance.
Perhaps, then, Passover’s prohibition on leavened products is less about a speedy departure from Mitzrayim, than it is about a proper caution to our own proclivities. Commonly, the pious individual is recognized for humility and personal restraint. We admire such persons. And, we equally commonly bristle at one who has a bloated estimation of oneself. We can lose patience with such persons.
Thus, wonderfully, Passover offer a wonderful re-understanding. Simply – let’s avoid the leavening!
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
