PESACH 5781
Pesach is finally here. I hope you enjoyed your Seder last night—in spite of the ongoing Coronavirus restrictions. One of the penultimate moments of the Seder for me is when we 1st eat the matzah. I like to use the round shmura matzah, handmade with the wheat watched from the moment that it was cut. It feels more like the matzah the Jews in Egypt would have eaten.
I found a unique box of matzah that I want to tell you about. Here’s a picture (last page). I want to tell you that this box of matzah represents the miracle of Jewish survival. To explain to you how this is, let me tell you about that famous song we sing at the very end of the Seder, Chad Gadya. (Sing the refrain…) We all know it! We anticipate it. We know that with it the Seder has come to an end.
The fact of the matter is that it wasn’t originally part of the Haggadah. It was just put in later on—seemingly as a child’s song. But it’s more than that. You remember what it tells us? One kid, one kid a father bought for 2 zuzim, only one kid. What happened to that one kid? And then came a cat and ate the kid that the father had bought, then came a dog that bit the cat, and then came a stick that beat the dog, and then came a fire that burned the stick, and then came water and put out the fire, then came an ox and drank the water, and then came a butcher and slaughtered the ox, then came the angel of death and slew the butcher that slaughtered the ox, and then came the Holy One, Blessed be He and slew the angel of death.
It’s a single simple song, but our Sages added much more meaning to it. They tell us it’s the story of Jewish history. Who is the kid? It’s the Jewish people. And bought for 2 zuzim? That was Moses and Aaron—Gd’s messengers and redeemers. And the cat? Assyria came to destroy us; and the dog, Babylonia, destroyed Assyria; and then came the stick which was the Persian Empire; and the water which was the Greeks; and the ox which was the Romans; and the slaughterer which were the Muslims; and the European nations representing the angel of death. but Gd comes and saves us from them all!
But wait a minute. In the very 1st verse the kid, who represents the Jewish people, was destroyed. So how is it possible that we’re still here? It’s a miracle! It’s the miracle of Jewish survival. As it says in the Haggadah: B’chol dor vador omdim aleynu l’chaloteynu (In every generation they rise up to destroy us). V’Hakadosh Baruch Hu matzileynu miyadam (And Gd comes to save us).
Which brings me to this box of matzah. Do you know what’s special about this box of matzah? It’s where it was made. Do you remember in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the Jews of the Soviet Union—who we didn’t even know existed—suddenly came alive and we, the Jews throughout the world, did everything we could to keep the fire of Judaism burning for them…despite the fact that the Soviet authorities did everything possible to put out that fire. They didn’t allow any Jewish ritual items and so what were the Jews in the Soviet Union going to do for Pesach? And so we smuggled matzah into the Soviet Union for them.
And now, now I have this box of matzah that was for sale in supermarkets across the world. Where was it made? On the back it says it was made in Dnepropetrovsk—in the Ukraine! Think about it. They are now baking matzah in the Ukraine and exporting more than 70 tons of it to America and even Israel! Wow!!! Who would have thought! The miracle of Jewish survival.
Who would have thought that one generation after Hitler was almost successful in destroying the Jewish people, a Jewish State would be a nuclear power? My friends, in every generation they rise up to destroy us. We are the generation that has witnessed Gd saving us from their hands. Baruch Hashem. Amen!
