One of the well-known reasons we eat matzah on Passover is because when Bnei Yisrael left Mitzrayim, they left in a hurry. The dough did not have time to rise, and it became matzah. That is how we remember the geulah.

But when we look carefully in the Torah, we see something deeper. Even before they left Mitzrayim, they were already told to eat matzah with the Korban Pesach, and to continue eating matzah for seven days, as it says in Book of Exodus (Shemos) 12:18: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day in the evening, you shall eat matzot, until the twenty-first day in the evening.” At that point, nothing had yet happened. So why were they already commanded?

The Bnei Yissaschar explains that matzah and chametz are not just foods—they reflect how a person looks at the world.

When making matzah, you cannot stop. From the moment the water touches the flour, the dough must be handled the entire time. If you leave it even for a short while, it can become chametz. It is always being worked on.

Chametz is different. You leave the dough alone, and it rises. It looks like it is happening by itself.

That difference says everything.

Matzah reminds us that nothing in the world happens on its own. Just like the dough of matzah is never left alone, so too the world is never left alone. The Ribbono Shel Olam is involved in every detail, every moment. Things don’t just happen—they are guided.

Chametz gives the opposite feeling. It looks like things develop by themselves. That there is such a thing as “nature” running on its own. That events just unfold. Pesach comes to take that idea out of us.

That is why chametz is so strict. Even the smallest amount cannot remain. Because it is not just about food—it is about how we think. Even a small feeling that something happens on its own weakens a person’s emunah.

So we remove the chametz, and we eat matzah. We remind ourselves, in a very simple and real way, that Hashem is involved in everything.

A person does have free choice—but only in one place: in how he chooses to act. In what is right and what is wrong. That is where we are responsible. But everything else—what comes our way, what we go through—is not random.

And this itself is freedom.

A person can be a slave not only to others, but to his own pressure, his need to control everything, his worries. Someone who feels that everything depends on him alone never rests. But someone who knows that the world is in Hashem’s hands can breathe. He can live with a certain calm.

This is why matzah comes at the beginning. Before Bnei Yisrael became free, they had to learn what freedom really is.

If so, why don’t we live like this all year with matzah?

The Torah gives us a quiet answer. In Sefer Vayikra, chametz appears only in two places in the Beis HaMikdash. One is the Shtei HaLechem on Shavuot. The other is the Korban Todah. Both are moments of clarity. On Shavuot, we have received the Torah. We understand that Hashem runs the world. A Korban Todah is brought when a person says clearly: what happened to me was not by chance. It was from Hashem.

Once that is clear, chametz is no longer a danger.

But Pesach is where it begins. It is where this awareness has to enter a person. And this is not only about the past.

We are living through a difficult time. There is war, there is tension, and there is a lot that people are carrying—soldiers, families, the whole of Klal Yisrael. It is not simple. At such times, a person can feel that everything is uncertain, that things are just happening.

Pesach comes and quietly reminds us otherwise.

Nothing is just happening. The same Ribbono Shel Olam who took us out of Mitzrayim is still here, still guiding, even when we don’t understand how. Not everything is revealed, but nothing is random.

Our part is to hold on to that. To strengthen our emunah, to daven, and to be there for one another a little more.

And we hope and pray that just as the geulah then came suddenly, so too we should soon see yeshuah and better days for all of Klal Yisrael.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)