Can one ever eat enough matzah?
I know. Some of you are thinking: “Even a little is too much.” Nevertheless, as Pesach ends there is a practice to fit in just a little more matzah on the last day.
Rabbi Eliyahu Kramer, the Vilna Gaon, noted that the Torah gives us contradictory messages regarding the mitzvah to eat matzah. In one place, it commands us to eat matzah at the Seder, and in another, it says, “Eat matzah for seven days.” Many just assume the Torah is telling us that since we cannot eat bread, our only choice is to eat matzah over Pesach with a special requirement at the Seder. The Vilan Gaon understood differently. There is an OBLIGATION to eat matzah at the Seder, but one FULFILLS a mitzvah whenever one eats matzah during Pesach.
While some suffice with Seder matzah, the Vilna Gaon took advantage of the last day of Pesach to have a sort of “Seudah Shlishit,” which is usually only eaten on Shabbat, and eat just a little more matzah to fulfill one more mitzvah. Those who follow the Vilna Gaon have a little meal with matzah as Pesach ends called a “Neilat HaChag,” which means to close out the holiday.
Chasidim have a similar practice called “Seudah Besht” (Meal of Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov) or “Seudat Moshiach” (Messiah’s Meal). It originated as a meal to commemorate the Ba’al Shem Tov being saved from a shipwreck that took place on Pesach. The meal closes out the festival of the Exodus with an eye towards the future redemption described in the Haftorah of the last day of Pesach (Isaiah 11). Chabad chasidim turned the affair into a quasi-Seder with four cups of wine and songs of salvation.
Why does redemption need more matzah?
Matzah has multiple messages. It is the “bread of affliction” and “poor man’s bread.” When we eat matzah, we are reminded of slavery and subjugations past and present. Matzah is also the “bread of faith.” The Talmud teaches that matzah is the bread of answers. Kabbalah calls it the bread of healing. Eating matzah reminds us of the original salvation which fortifies us to face subsequent and current challenges with strength, confidence, and anticipation for redemption.
Matzah tells the story of a painful past at the same time as it inspires hope in a better future.
In the final weeks before Pesach in 1944 amidst the horrors of Bergen-Belsen, Jewish inmates, starved and broken, turned to the Bluzhever Rebbe, Rav Yisrael Spira, with an impossible request: permission to bake matzah. Risking his life, the Rebbe petitioned the brutal camp commandant, Adolf Haas. Miraculously, Haas agreed to submit the request to Berlin, which approved a limited amount of flour to be used in place of the prisoners’ daily bread. With great devotion, the prisoners built a makeshift oven and baked matzah while singing Hallel, experiencing a brief moment of spiritual freedom.
But soon after, a smuggled letter from another inmate was discovered, and Haas accused the Rebbe of betrayal. Despite being threatened with execution unless he named the culprit, the Rebbe stood firm, ready to die rather than inform. Haas ultimately spared his life but destroyed the matzah oven. Only a very few matzahs had been baked already, and the question arose—who should eat them?
A widow named Bronia passionately insisted that the children should eat the matzah – “One day soon, they will be free, and they will rebuild their lives and conduct Sedarim of their own. They should eat it because they represent the future.”
On Seder night, the Rebbe led a Seder for the children, planting seeds of hope amidst the darkness. A year later, the camp was liberated. Eventually, Bronia married the Rebbe, and her two sons who ate the matzah that Pesach night became his children. One of those sons later became the next Bluzhever Rebbe; the other helped publish his teachings. From ashes and agony, a legacy was rebuilt, and a future preserved. (From Haggadah Touched by Our Story, Rabb Yechiel Spero, p.20-22)
The children who once ate matzah in Bergen-Belsen carried with them the spark to ignite the fire of Jewish continuity, a living rejection of despair. Matzah is a powerful symbol. Eating matzah fortifies us for the future.
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg wrote, “Freedom is in the psyche, not in the bread.” At the same time, eating matzah is a tangible encounter with an expectation for redemption and confidence in the future. If so, I’ll have some more, please.
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