Matsot
Fast, nourishing food for a long journey on foot
André H. Roosma
16 April 2014
1 And YaHUaH
spoke to Mosheh and to Aharon in the land of Egypt, saying,
2 This month shall be to you the beginning of
months. It shall be the first month of the year to you.
3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying,
In the tenth of this month they shall each take a lamb for themselves
according to their families – a lamb for a household.
4 And if any household is too small for a lamb,
let him and his next-door neighbor take according to the number of
people, – you will make your count for the lamb according to how much
each one can eat.
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a one year
old male. You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats.
6 And you shall keep it up until the fourteenth
day of the same month. And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel
shall slaughter it in the evening.
7 And they shall take of the blood and strike on
the two side posts and upon the upper door post of the houses in which they
shall eat it.
8 And they shall eat the flesh in that night,
roasted with fire, and matsot [unleavened bread]. They shall eat it with bitter herbs.
9 Do not eat of it raw, nor boiled at all in
water, but roasted over a fire, its head with its legs, and with its inward
parts.
10 And you shall not let any of it remain until
the morning. And that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn
with fire.
11 And you shall eat of it this way, your loins
girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you
shall eat it in a hurry. It is YaHUaH’s pesach.
12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt this
night, and will strike every first-born in the land of Egypt, both people
and animals. And I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. I,
YaHUaH.
13 And the blood shall be a sign for you on the
houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And
the plague shall not be upon you for a destruction when I strike the land
of Egypt.
14 And this day shall be a memorial to you. And
you shall keep it as a feast to YaHUaH throughout your generations.
You shall keep it as a feast by a law forever.
15 You shall eat matsot [unleavened bread] seven days; even the first day
you shall put away leaven out of your houses. For whoever eats leavened
bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off
from Israel.
16 And on the first day shall be a holy
gathering, and in the seventh day there shall be a holy gathering for you.
No manner of work shall be done on them, only what every person will eat
that alone may be prepared by you.
17 And you shall keep the [Feast of] matsot [unleavened
bread]. For in this same day I have brought your armies out of the
land of Egypt. You are to observe this day from generation to generation
as a perpetual ordinance.
18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day
of the month at evening, you shall eat matsot [unleavened bread], until the twenty-first day of
the month at evening.
19 Seven days there shall be no leaven found in
your houses. For whoever eats that which is leavened, even that soul shall
be cut off from the congregation of Israel, among the aliens and among the
natives of the land.
20 You shall eat nothing leavened. In all your
settlements you shall eat matsot [unleavened bread]. Exodus 12: 1-20;
Cf. also Deuteronomy 16: 1-4
This story has always left me wondering how the Israelites could make that
immense journey on foot only on a couple of matzo with some lamb or
goats meat. The matzo as I knew them seemed especially suited to a
ritual purpose and were hardly nourishing... Therefore I started to search
some further: what can be discovered about the matzo at the time of
Mosheh?
Let us begin with the Bible text and the words used in it. The Hebrew
text speaks of מַצּ֣וֹת - matsot, plural of
the feminine word מַצָּה - matsáh
[H4682] - sweetness, sweet
(not sour or bitter by sourdough or yeast),
a cake or bread of which the dough has not been fermented (no fermentation by yeast or sourdough has taken place in the
dough). Aspects involved are: sweet, pure, nourishing, (beaten) flat and dry, with an additional weak
association of being separated.1
When we go back in time further to the more ancient Biblical script,2 we see that matsáh was written as:    . Very literally this can be interpreted as: water and grain to
live from and to rejoice in – so suggesting a pure bread prepared
from flour and water only. Possibly the tsade () can also be related to the verb to squeeze out, leading
to the interpretation of a flat, dry bread that looks as if all water () has been squeezed
out () is.
From the context it appears that the essence is that it is a sort of
bread that is pure, without leavening, and that it can be prepared really
quickly, because the dough does not need to rise. That it can be prepared
rapidly is confirmed in the first instance in which the word matsot
appears in the Bible.
That is in Genesis 19: 3, where Lot very quickly prepares matsot for
the angels visiting him in Sodom (with possibly the
implicit association: signs that he is glad to be separate from the dark
and through-and-through evil Sodom).
Apart from its quick preparation, being unleavened has still another
essential aspect. That is the cutting through of the bonds with the old life
in Egypt. To explain that, first something about working with sourdough to
let dough rise and get an airy and light bread. The Dutch wikipedia page on
sourdough says: “Fermentation, necessary for the rising of the
dough, takes place thanks to lactic acid bacteria, acetic acid bacteria
and yeasts that are naturally present in the dough. These bacteria and
yeasts live in symbiosis and care among others for the formation of bubbles
of carbondioxide gas that give the bread its airy/light structure upon
baking.” The multiplication of these yeasts and bacteria was
stimulated by the custom that each day they kept a small part of the dough
behind to mix it in the next day’s dough. In that way, the yeasts
and bacteria from the old dough multiplied quickly in the new dough.
That small amount of dough that was kept from day to day cared for the
survival of the old yeasts and bacteria, which symbolized the sin and decay
of Egypt. By putting away all leavened bread and dough, they cut all ties
with the old Egypt and all its iniquity. The assignment not to leave any
dough from day to day for a week implied that all old degradation of Egypt
was killed.3
When we look at what is known about bread making from
those times, amongst others via archeological research, it appears
that bread loaves from that time were in general rather flat. And that bread
was used as a vehicle to eat other food. People did not eat with a knife
and fork, but by dipping bread in a sauce, wrapped vegetables or meat pieces
in it, in order to be able to consume those vegetables or that meat while
keeping one’s hands relatively clean, or even take it with them for
later consumption during the journey. So, with ‘bread’ we
should not think of our high western style breads, but more of the Arabian flatbreads becoming more popular
here too, of the small pita breads in which e.g. lamb shawarma is eaten, of naan-bread, of roti
and tortilla’s (both are traditionally
prepared without yeast or sourdough as well) and of other
wraps or pancakes.
What kind of ‘bread’ could have been baked in that tradition
from unleavened dough? On that question I spontaneously got an experimental
answer last Monday & Tuesday. My supply of bread was finished and I did not
like to go to the baker’s to buy fresh bread (with
yeast!) so closely before the week of unleavened bread.
However, I did have a good appetite because I did not have a big dinner on
Sunday. I had a look in my kitchen cupboard. There were, among others,
whole wheat flour, eggs and olive oil. And in the fidge was milk. I wondered
what I might get when I would mix some of those and pour the mixture in a
hot frying-pan. The mixing together went fast, and in the meantime the
pan was hot. The surprising result was that within about seven minutes
I had baked three sturdy, well-nourishing pancakes or wraps. And filled
with some cheese, peanut butter and jelly, respectively, I had consumed them
as well...
Because the Israelites in Egypt probably did not have milk and eggs
available to them,4 I repeated the experiment on Tuesday with
whole-grain flower and water only. The result was still a bit more compact
and tasted a little less well that that of the day before, but was still
well to handle and very nourishing. Filled with lamb meat and some
vegetables it will have been a very good meal that provided lots of energy
for the long journey.
Many associated words express also something of fullness and/or
sturdiness that appears and that we may drink in. Jewish (rabbinical) matzo as usually baked, do not fit
those qualifications, just as not providing the optimal nourishment
for a long journey on foot. But a couple of pan cakes as I just prepared
them from wholegrain flour and some water without any yeast or sourdough as
well, baked in a little bit of olive oil, with some jelly or syrup, do
fulfill the qualifications, and nourish – especially in combination
with quite some roasted lamb meat – a lot better as preparation for
an enormeous journey on foot that the common matzo. And then still
a nice detail: how do you see that such a pan cake is ready to eat? as soon
as it is dry!
My super fastly prepared pan cakes or wraps of flour without yeast or
anything like it appear to fit the given descriptions at least as well, if
not better, than the usual Jewish thin, crispy matzo.
The Wikipedia page on matzo says: “There are two major forms
of matza. In many western countries the most common form is the hard form
of matza which is cracker-like in appearance and taste and is used in all
Ashkenazic and most Sephardic communities [who are
strongly influenced by rabbinical Judaism; AHR]. Yemenites, and Iraqi
Jews traditionally made a form of soft matza which looks like Greek pita
or like a tortilla.”
The old notation of matsot:   can call forward another association for the Christian or Messianic
Israelite: that of abundance () from The Righteous One (), nailed () to the Cross
(). In the
Last Supper we are to commemorate that He gave His Body, His fullness,
by being slaughtered as the perfect Pesach lamb in our place
and give us Life.
Hallelu YaH !
Notes
| 1 |
The Hebrew text speaks about מַצּ֣וֹת - matsot, which is interpreted as plural of the feminine
word מַצָּה - matsāh. This word would
be derived from the verb מָצַץ - mātsats [H4711] - to suck.
In the Bible this appears just once, in Yesha-yahu (Isaiah) 66: 11, where via the prophet God calls His people to
suck on the breast of Jerusalem, via which God lets His shalom
stream to His people like a river. Brown, Driver & Briggs aptly note: to
suck in the sense of greedily devouring for sweetness. for מץ - the basis of this - the well-known
dictionaries (such as Brown, Driver & Briggs,
Gesenius and Fürst) refer to the basis words מוּץ - muts [H4160] - to squeeze, press out, oppress; or: threshing grain; and/or
the derived מָצָּה - mots [H4671] - what is separated, as chaff or straw
from grain. Derived from that is מָצָּה -
mātsāh [H4680] - to suck or squeeze out; and: מַצָּה - matsāh [H4682] - sweetness, sweet (not sour or bitter
by sourdough or yeast), a cake or bread of which the dough has not
been fermented by yeast or sourdough. So, associated aspects in it are:
(beaten) flat, dry and sweet, with a weak association to being
separated.
Also remarkable is מָצָא - mātsā [H4672] - to appear, to
become present. While eating their matsot, the Israelites became a
visible nation out of the anonymity of Egyptian slavery! |
| 2 |
More information on the old Biblical script, as
referred to here, is in the Hallelu-YaH Draft
Research Report: ‘The Written
Language of Abraham, Moses and David – A study of the pictographic
roots and basic notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest Biblical
script’  , a living document by André H. Roosma, 1st English version: 18 April 2011 (1st Dutch original: January 2011). |
| 3 |
Paul wrote about this in his letter to the Church in
Corinth:
7 Get rid of the old
yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, since you are to be free from
yeast. For the Messiah, our Passover, has been sacrificed.
8 So let us keep celebrating the festival, neither
with old yeast nor with yeast that is evil and wicked, but with yeast-free
bread that is both sincere and true. 1 Corinthians 5: 7-8 |
| 4 |
Milk was not preservable very long in those
circumstances. Possibly they did have cheese, curds or yogurt-like dairy
products that could be kept for a few days, but the fermentation in them would
disqualify them for use in the preparation of matsot. So I remain yet
with the interpretation from the old symbols: water and grain. The grain
will probably have been barley or emmer(wheat). It was often grounded simply
by hand between two specially formed stones. |
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See also the series on Pesach: (1) God separates His own,
has them escape death, and pulls them away from Egypt, (2) God opens the way
to life, (3)
Yeshu‘ah fulfills
Pesach.
Next article: Matsot
(2) – Fleeing all that alienated us from God, in order to
receive His new Life.
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