What???
I could quote many many sources, but for brevity, I will quote only from the Torah and Josephus.
From the Torah, we read in Leviticus 23:5-8 that what we are now calling "Passover" was actually comprised of two separate holidays: the Holiday of the Paschal Lamb, celebrated at the end of the fourteenth day of Nissan, and the Holiday of Unleavened Bread, celebrated from the eve of the fifteenth day of Nissan through the twenty-first.
Similarly, the first-century historian Josephus explicitly separates between Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread:
"[Moses] got the Hebrews ready for their departure, and ...when the fourteenth day was come, and all were ready to depart, they offered the sacrifice, and purified their houses with the blood, using bunches of hyssop for that purpose... When it is that we do still offer this sacrifice in like manner to this day, and call this festival Pascha, which signifies the feast of the feast of the Passover; because on that day G!d passed us over, and sent the plague upon the Egyptians."
A paragraph later, Josephus describes the origins of a separate holiday, the holiday of unleavened bread:
"On the third day [the Israelites] came to a place called Baalzephon, on the Red Sea; and when they had no food out of the land, because it was a desert, they ate of loaves kneaded of flour, only warmed by a gentle heat; and this food they made use of for thirty days; for what they brought with them out of Egypt would not suffice them any longer time….when it is that, in memory of the want we were then in, we keep a feast for eight days, which is called the feast of unleavened bread."
These sources, and so many others as well, show that Passover and Chag HaMatzot were two separate holidays.
It is clear that the biblical Passover was associated entirely with the Israelites being spared from the final plague of the death of the firstborn sons, and finally given passage from Egypt. In fact, the word Pesach literally means "to spare," because the Israelites were spared from the tenth plague.
This is the only commemoration of Passover, and its observance was very specific: slaughtering a lamb or goat, roasting it over an open spit (no other cooking method allowed), and then eating the lamb/goat that same evening in its entirety, and burning what was leftover so that it did not remain to the next day. It was to be eaten in haste, not reclining, fully dressed, wearing shoes, holding a walking stick and ready to move out. It was a family meal, and if the family was not large enough to consume an entire lamb or goat, it was necessary to organize a few families together so that the entire animal (or as much of it as possible so that nothing was wasted) would be consumed.
Why a lamb or goat? Because to the Egyptians, shepherding and eating lambs was considered "an abomination." They were not shepherds, those Egyptians; rather, they were skilled farmers. They were vegetarians (occasionally pescatarians), consuming a diet composed largely of vegetables, fruit, wheat and barley. Not even much fish. They ate mostly plants such as garlic, aubergines, pears, lentils and wheat, and a bit of seeds such as millet and sorghum. Therefore, roasting a lamb, intact, on an open spit (similar to roasting a whole pig as you might have seen in movies), and then consuming it, was a very strong sign by the Israelites to the Egyptians that they are now claiming their freedom from Egyptian culture (in addition to using the blood of the lamb on their doorposts to spare them from the tenth plague). That is the entire meaning of the Passover, Pesach.
It is important here to note that the source of the elaborate rituals and literary forms of the "Passover" Seder and Haggadah (story telling) were based on Graeco-Roman table manners and dietary habits. The Sages adopted the Graeco-Roman symposium style after the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70CE as a way to replace the Paschal sacrifice, which could no longer be performed.
The meaning of the Festival of Unleavened Bread is, however, more obscure, especially since it is not directly associated with the Pesach story. Many scholars believe that it most likely originated as an agricultural festival, much like Sukkot and Shavuot. It is explicitly connected to spring, and Joshua 5:11 suggests a connection to agriculture where it is seen only as a holiday focused on nature rather than history.
As well, in Exodus 12:34, we read that after we hurriedly left Egypt, as we set up camp on our way to the desert (the first time as a free nation), we found ourselves with no baked bread and lots of unbaked dough, and only makeshift methods for baking it. Since necessity is the mother of invention, we quickly improvised by baking that dough as thin matzah, using either the heat of the sun or makeshift flat rocks on hot coals to bake it. Hence, unleavened flat bread. (And yet, was it unleavened? For if they brought the mixed up dough with them, then the natural leavening process had already begun! So that first bread for breakfast that morning, their first morning as free people, they did not actually eat bread completely chametz-free.)
In Exodus 13: 5-8, we read that Moses, on that momentous day, the morning after we fled Egypt, and after we had baked flat bread for breakfast, says: "Remember this day, that you have left Egypt from slavery, for G!d has taken you out with an outstretched hand. You shall not eat chametz (leavening). You are leaving in the month of the spring, so when you come into the Promised Land... on this month eat matzah for seven days... you shall not see or own chametz in all your borders."
The gist of the Festival of Unleavened Bread is that it is a celebration of two things: FREEDOM, and the arrival of spring. In fact, just as roasting a lamb and eating it was one way to show the Egyptians they would have no more of Egyptian culture forced onto them, so matzah did as well. Chametz (leavening) itself was a symbol of Egyptian culture, and it is well known among archeologists that the art of making leaven was first developed in Egypt, and the Egyptians who perfected the process of bread-making.
It would take a lot of words to present all the information I have about Pesach and Chag haMatzot as being two entirely separate events, and why we should not refer to these 8 days as "Passover." For now, let's just take my word for it so we can skip the minutiae and move on to ask, "Why is this important? Potatoes, potahtoes, tomatoes, tomahtoes. Passover, Shmashover, right?"
Here is why it is important: After the first, original Pesach, thereafter the Pesach lamb/goat meal could only be observed when there was an official altar on which to pour the drained blood as an offering. Even esteemed Harvard Professor Shaye Cohen agrees that we cannot today observe the holiday of Pesach aka Passover, and that the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Chag haMatzot, is a separate and different Festival, unrelated to Passover. Chag haMatzot we can still celebrate; Chag Pesach we cannot.
Yet, over centuries, somehow these two stories were fused and intertwined. Much like the stories of a godly Bishop Nicholaus, various renderings of Father Christmas, and other stories like the Feast of the Epiphany and the gifts of the Magi and even Solstice, we have lumped them all together, whirred them in the blender, and come out with what we now call Christmas.
In so doing, we have lost so much of the depth and richness that each of these individual stories/celebrations have to offer us, and made a melting pot mess of the whole thing. If you melt all the beautiful, differently-colored crayons in one pan, you get a brown mess of melted wax. That same thing has happened over time to Pesach and Chag haMatzot.
So what we might we do instead?
Here are my thoughts:
On Pesach night, which is tonight, we reflect on having been slaves, ready to flee from captivity. We cannot today offer a sacrificial Pesach offering, nor do I believe we should. And, as we have seen, the seder is an invention to replace the Pesach offering, and it has done us no favors by mashing together two very different, very separate holidays. As the ancient Israelites were tied to the cultures of their captors (and sometimes those they captured), the Second Temple Jews used Greek-Roman culture to frame their new, replacement ritual in the wake of the Destruction. Is that the best model for us to use today? I'm not certain it is.
But we can take an evening to reflect on the spiritual meanings we can derive from the experience of being slaves. There are people who are enslaved all over this world, and in this country. How can you help?
As well, all of us are in some way a slave to something. What is holding you back? Think about that tonight. It does not require a seder, a big meal, or a big family gathering (unless you choose to retain that). What worked in 100CE, 2,000 years ago, might serve to link us to that time, but it also might put our focus on an elaborate ritual and actually block us from the real spiritual work and deeper meaning we have before us. I am all for instituting a more spiritually focused evening in place of an old ritual that keeps being repeated out of routine and custom rather than heart and soul. Perhaps it is time to hit RESET and REFRESH when it comes to both Pesach and our Festival of Freedom.
Then, beginning on Nissan 16 (tomorrow at sundown), for 7 days we eat unleavened bread, either actually or symbolically. This gives us the opportunity to celebrate and think about who we are as FREE people, and how wonderful spring is with its freshness and newness and green growing things. How might we be like new little plants beginning to break through the soil? A bud leafing on a tree? How might we break away from a "foreign culture" enforced upon us? How might we "eat unleavened bread" in a way that is more meaningful to our 21st century?
After reviewing what still holds us back from our holiday tonight, tomorrow we will immediately move into our new camp, the camp of being free people. We still have many obstacles ahead of us, but we celebrate our freedom for the next 7 days after tonight. And one of the ways we do this is in some symbolic act of our new freedom.
For the ancient Israelites, it was eating matzah and avoiding all chametz/leavening. For them, chametz was a symbol of Egyptian culture. Chametz, leavening, can now be seen as a symbol of our puffed up ago, as well as a symbol of the Egyptian culture/enslavement. But perhaps we have outgrown that symbol, too, and might find something that works better for us.
Perhaps your journey to freedom from slavery is a more mindful, healthful eating plan, and for you, that is a better symbol and celebration of freedom. Other ideas might include:
- cutting back on processed food consumption;
- reducing single use plastics which has enslaved us and destroyed our planet;
- stop smoking;
- seeing the face of G!d in everyone we come across;
- going on a "mental diet" and challenging ourselves not to have negative thoughts about others;
- doing good deeds of all kinds;
- taking on a new effort for social equity...
You get the idea.
We no longer have to eat the bread of slaves, for after tonight, we are a free people.
Rather then spending so much time and energy on ridding our homes of chametz, and spending lots of money on a seder, maybe the time has come for us to put all our effort into celebrating our freedom to leave slavery and to welcome the freshness of spring!
However you celebrate it, Chag haMatzot sameach! Happy Festival of Unleavened Bread!
Shalom uv'racha! Peace and blessings!
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