Dear CBI Family,

Why do we place three matzot on the Seder table?

Some say the number three represents the three categories of our ancestors: Priests, Levites and Israelites. But I prefer a simpler explanation.

On a regular Shabbat meal, we usually have two loaves of challah on the table. But tonight is different from all other nights. On Passover we eat matzah, not bread, to remember the haste with which we fled from Egypt, from slavery to freedom. We escaped so quickly there was no time for the bread to rise. So on Pesach, rather than two loaves, we have two matzot. These two matzot represent the lechem mishneh, the two-day portion of manna God gave the Israelites the day before Shabbat, so we wouldn’t have to work gathering food on our day of rest. That accounts for two of the three matzot.

The bottom matzah reminds us of the Pesach wheat offering that our ancestors gave in the days of the Temple. 

The middle matzah has an additional, fundamental significance. It represents the bread of poverty, lechem oni, the bread of affliction. Only poor people and slaves ate unleavened bread. 

The HaMotzi is our normal blessing over bread, one of the Birkot HaNeenim, blessings for eating and drinking. We use all three matzot for the HaMotzi. The Asher Kidshanu is one of the blessings over commanded acts. It’s a blessing over fulfilling the commandment to eat matzah, a reminder of the miracle of redemption. We use only the top two matzot for this blessing. We’ll use the bottom matzah for the Hillel sandwich.

Everyone at the Seder must take a bite of the top and middle matzot. Not just a tiny bite; we must eat at least a kezayt, an amount the size and weight of an olive. Since olives in Israel can be fairly large, we try to eat a bit more than that, so we can be sure we have fulfilled the commandment. To make sure we feel the oppression of slavery, Ashkenazim refrain from salting the matzah, lest we enjoy it. To make sure we know what freedom feels like, we recline while eating like free people. 

Matzah is a symbol of poverty and slavery. Every year for Passover we are commanded to eat matzah, so we can see ourselves as poor and enslaved, and experience what this process does to our dignity. It is because of this fundamental lesson that we better know to respect other people’s dignity. In that sense, matzah is also a symbol of freedom because it liberates us from the ethical narrowness (Mitzrayim) of oppressing others.  

The matzah is also a symbol of incompletion: an unfinished bread. Bread is whole. We live in a world that is, like matzah, broken, in need of wholeness and repair. As we recite this blessing, we become more mindful regarding our responsibility to repair the world. We should “Letakein Olam Bemalchut Shaday,” Repair the World Within God’s Domain, as we pray in the Aleynu. 

Bread can also be a symbol of transformation and growth. Dough is kneaded and given the time to rise and expand, and then baked for the requisite time, in order to reach its potential of fully baked bread. 

The matzah instead is a symbol of not having—not having had the time for the dough to rise and to bake properly. Matzah is emblematic of not having the time and the elements to become the best it could be, by rising, expanding and growing, but instead having remained flat. 

This ritual gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves: 

At the seder we go from matzah as a symbol of degradation, poverty and slavery, to matzah as a metaphor for the sweetness of freedom, and a reminder of our redemption.

The time has come this Chag haMatzot, this Holiday of Matzot, to liberate ourselves of whatever kept us in a matzah state. This is our opportunity to become more like bread, and grow to the fullest of our potential, fulfilling our purpose as we contribute to the healing of the world. 

Blessings,

Rabbi Cantor Mariana Gindlin