Blessing & reflection on matzoh
The blessing over the meal and matzah ה
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz.
We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who brings bread from the land.
Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al achilat matzah.
We praise God, Ruler of Everything, who made us holy through obligations, commanding us to eat matzah.
Distribute and eat the top and middle matzah for everyone to eat.
Reader 1: We are meant to fully experience the flatness and blandness of the matzah , not to mention its visual similarity to cardboard. This is a food that has no real identity of its own. It is completely ready to receive. It is ready to be impressed upon: in the physical world, by a nice schmeer of guacamole; and in the spiritual world by the profound spiritual imprint that God wants to impress upon each of us. Eating matzah aligns us toward receptivity to whatever God wants us to have.
Reader 2: Unlike most foods, matzah is essentially free of a third dimension. It is flat. It has not yet 'grown' 'up'. But this is because God wants us not to grow in the usual way. He has a different third dimension in mind for us, one that does not follow the rules of linear growth. Inasmuch as we are attached to identity, we cannot completely receive Holy Identity. As we eat the matzah , then, let us strive to become like the matzah as much as we can, so that we can be impressed upon by God who engraves upon us.
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