We’re going to be enjoying a lot of matzah next week. Here are two kavanos to have in mind while eating matzah, not only at the Seder but throughout Yom Tov (from The Making of a Nation, the haggadah incorporating Rav Avigdor Miller’s speeches, also mentioned here.)
- Matzah is the bread of affliction. Our forefathers in Mitzrayim underwent suffering and were purified because of it. When we eat the matzah, we can absorb some of the spiritual perfection attained by our forefathers in Mitzrayim: “And as your teeth are crunching into the matzah, don’t waste the opportunity, and try to gain even in a small measure what our forefathers gained by eating a different kind of matzah…they became a new people. They went through fire, but they were purified in that furnace…think while eating your matzos that by this means I want to gain some of the perfection that our forefathers gained by oni, suffering.”
- Matzah represents the chipazon, the hurry in which we left Mitzrayim: “For 210 years we couldn’t go out…and suddenly Hashem said, “Now’s the time.” He pressed the button and immediately we went out that night…That’s why you’re supposed to eat the matzah, to show they didn’t have a chance for the bread to become leaven…What’s the lesson of haste? To show that everything is the timetable of Hashem.”
Through the days of Y”T ahead (and the stacks of matzos we’ll be eating iy”H), may we merit to absorb higher levels of spiritual perfection and emunah in Hashem’s constant hashgacha.
