This is but one reason that we seem to feel something so special about this simple food.

It reflects the essence of Yisrael.

As we were taught earlier in our preparation Matzah can only be cooked for a maximum of 18 minutes. 18 as we know relates to life. So eating Matzah is a path to life. This we know is true since this month of Nissan is all about wars and battles. When we win the war against our desire for one self alone we gain life.

18 minutes consists of 1080 seconds. The Benai Yissachar teaches that 1080 is a special number since it is 5 times 216. 216 is the gematria of Gevurah. It is also the number of letters in the 72 Names of God.

1080 is also 72 times 15. 15 represents the upper world metaphor of Yood Hey. 72 is the gematria of the spelling out of the Tetragrammaton in the frame of Chesed. Chesed is the overall aspect of Pesach. We see this when we realize that Nissan represents a period of war and blood which is judgment and then we are given this "free" light of Pesach which comes without any bread of shame. The Holiday of Pesach is a period of time (Chesed) taken outside of the frame of judgment. Chesed is the overall aspect of Pesach. It is a free gift as we see this idea of 1080 seconds.

There is Chesed in allowing us to learn 30 days times 24 hours, or 720 (10 times Chesed) hours before Pesach.

There is Chesed to feed us the Omer, the barley after Pesach, since the Bnei Yissascar points out, the word Omer spelled out – Ayin Yud Nun, Mem Mem, and Reish Yud Nun, adds up to ….720, or 10 times Chesed!

Pesach is the BEGINNING of a year long cycle - perhaps coming from the Hebrew word Seichal, knowledge (perhaps, also, leading to the words school and skill?), and related to the word Shekel, meaning weight  - that extends through the Counting of the Omer for 49 days beginning on the second Seder to Shavuot, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and then a few months later, to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret, followed by Chanukah and Purim.

The Seder of the year’s upcoming spiritual destinations should also be acknowledged and discussed at the Pesach Seder.

There is more, of course, connecting these spiritual destinations through Matzah.

According to the Malbim, a brilliant rabbi from the early 1800s who wrote a famous commentary on the Torah, there are 190 days from Erev Pesach to Shemini Atzeret.

The number 190 represents the value of the word Kaitz, which means end.

Our sages say that the four hundred year exile shown to Avraham was cut short by 190 years.

What is so special about this concept of 190 – Kaitz – cutting the decree, in relation the Seder?

The Bnei Yissascar points out the following - the word Matzah spelled out – Mem Mem (40 & 40), Tzadi (90 & 4 & 10) and Hey (5 & 1) equals……190!

Kaitz.is a code word for Death. Matzah as we will see when we review the Seder is an antidote for death.

Matzah then, to its inner core, has still another dimension - a cutting off of all past negatives.

As we eat Matzah during the Seder, we should chew slowly and have this in mind.

It literally cuts us off from our past. [our mistakes]

The Matzah even overwhelms the four questions in importance. How?

The Four Questions, the famous four questions, appear in the beginning of the fifth of the fifteen sections of the Seder. The fifth section is called Maggid, which means the telling – hence, the word Haggadah - of the story of the liberation.

These four questions contain in total 49 words, which is an illusion to the 49 days of Counting the Omer from Pesach to Shavuot.

Questioning, is a key aspect of the Seder. Questions are the key aspect of wisdom. In fact, the word Chochma can be broken into two words – Koach Mah, the power of a Mah, a question.

Further the value of the word Chochma is 73. If we add one at a time – one plus two plus three…. up to 73 – it equals, according to Rav Cutler from Monsey, the value of the first sentence in the Torah with its 28 letters!

Chochma is derived from and evidenced by the very first sentence of the Torah!

One might think then, that the Haggadah would begin the Maggid Section with the Four Questions, since “questioning” is related to creating a new state of knowledge.

These four questions, however, are NOT the first part of Maggid. The author of the Seder – we are not sure who it was - thought differently. The first part belongs to the paragraph called Hah Lachma, which means, the Bread of Affliction. This first section in the Maggid section has, just like the first sentence in the Torah has 28 letters, 28 words!!! 

The Matzah then again takes top precedence of the evening, even before the four Questions, the four sons, and the four cups of wine. (By the way we will discuss the number 4 in the Seder below as well.) Yet it also alludes to the first sentence in the Torah, through the 28 letters there and the 28 words here.

We are told by our sages that Eliyahu Hanavi comes to each house, and we have a special cup of wine for him and open the door for him. The word Hah is made up of the first letters in Eliyahu Hanavi - Alef and Hey, giving us pause that perhaps he is the author of the Haggadah. Since Eliyahu will announce Mashiach, from the House of David, the author of Tehillim. It stands to reason that the first and last letters in Sefer Tehillim are also Aleph and Hey, forming the word …Hah!!!!.

As we eat the Matzah, we also might want to consider that Matzah - 135 - plus Yisrael 541 - add up together to 676, which is the value of 26 times 26, HaShem times HaShem.

King David writes in his Psalms that Many Evils Befall A Righteous Person. The word evils- Royos - has a value of 676. Matzah and Yisrael – Together -offset the Royos - evils. This is the true purpose of the Seder - putting positivity into our life and removing the evils the negative and chaos from our lives.

From this, our sages put the name of HaShem 26 times into the Shemonah Esray. What can we learn from this? We can carry the power of the Seder, and the combination of our nation and our bread, all year in our prayers, to offset the evils that exist.

The ability to minimize the arrogance and the negativity and the falseness of Chametz the rest of the year can, if we utilize the Seder and our davenning properly, be fought with a new awareness of the weapons at our disposal that we gain during this night.

Chametz

Chametz spelled backwards is the word Tzemach which translates as sprouting and growing. Therefore, Chametz even as it has the concept of yeast which is sprouting and growing or expanding actually means the opposite of growth. Again we see the power is studying the Hebrew Letters and words.

Here is another teaching about Chametz from Rabbi David Seidenberg

Waking up the חמץ Chamets/Chometz!

During the rest of the year any time that a non-kosher item gets into kosher food, if its volume is less than 1/60th of what it goes into, and it gets thoroughly mixed in, it is thought of as vanishing completely. The principle is called "batel bashishim" בטל בשישים (batel=nullifying, shishim=sixty). By the same token, if a piece of pork fell into a stew, if you fish it out the stew is still good to eat. In both cases the law only applies if what happened was a mistake (b'di'avad בדיעבד). You are not supposed to accidentally on purpose drop a piece of pork in to add a little flavor. The Halacha does not support that kind of mistake.

During Pesach we are stricter about Chametz than at any other time of the year.

One manifestation of this fact that we're stricter about chametz חמץ than about any other kosher law is that chametz is not "batel bashishim." Chametz, unlike any other tref food (e.g, milk that gets mixed with meat or pork) ruins anything it falls into, no matter how small an amount falls in, no matter if it was a mistake or not. But that rule only applies during Passover.

So what happens if chametz got into anything *before* Passover, and it "vanished" because it was less than 1/60th? When Passover comes around, can that food be eaten? The answer is debated—some say yes for chametz that was liquid and no for chametz that was solid. The idea that guides this practice is that any piece of chametz that is not dissolved "comes back and wakes up" in Hebrew, chozer v'ne'ur חוזר ונעור.

Here's a spiritual lesson one can glean from this: On Pesach we (hope to) reach a higher spiritual level, one which is more in touch with what is essential, more humble like matzah. That's another meaning of the word chozer חוזר, which is also used as a synonym for turning/teshuvah/repentance תשובה. But sometimes when we reach a higher spiritual level, minor character flaws, things which wouldn't be considered important in an average person's life, can suddenly become great obstacles. For instance, white lies or the kind of slight exaggeration that might happen in business dealings may seem normal and even gracious, but when you are striving for a very high level of honesty, these things might bring you down. At that level, something that might look like an "honest mistake" can still harm, because it comes from a lack of awareness and intention. This is like the chametz: when we ascend, the shmutz (Yiddish for dirt) we carry inside us and the habits we have learned to ignore can "come back and wake up" and become large obstacles.

How can a person fight that when it happens? Perhaps by becoming more *fluid* (i.e., liquid), less fixed on a particular idea of who you are, less focused on ego—in other words, by reaching again just a bit higher. And of course, it's a never-ending cycle. As Rebbe Nachman (and many others) taught, there is no standing still on the spiritual plane. If you're not growing then you're regressing.

The problem I know from experience. The solution (pun intended) can be a bit more elusive.

In any case, I wish everyone a chance to get in touch with their inner chametz, and to transform themselves so that the shmutz falls away and disappears.

chanoch says from his personal experience, realizing that the days of Pesach are a different dimension does help in becoming more fluid. It does help in realizing that what has become habit needs to be brought back to conscious awareness and make a decision to change it so that you can stay in that new dimension, that higher state of consciousness all year and not just at Pesach.

The Lesson of the Chametz and Matzah

A teaching by Rabbi Gershon Winkler PHD of the Walking Stick Foundation

Matzah is symbolic of simplicity and how that is a prerequisite to true liberation. Matzah is absent of fluff, of additives, of חָמֵץ Chametz. It is simply a blend of Earth [flour] and Water baked in Fire just long enough to coalesce, not a moment more, and then quickly removed from Fire out into Air. It's about basics-Earth, Fire and Water unified by Air. The Hebrew word for "Air" אַוִיר ah'veer, also implies emptiness as in the blank, primordial space of Genesis, of Creation renewing. Any delay in this process invites enrichment, fermentation, elemental simplicity morphing into sophisticated complexity, and becomes then Chametz. "Matzah is called לֶחֶם עוֹנִי lechem o'nee [bread of poverty]" wrote the 16th-century Rabbi Yehudah Loew of Prague, "because liberation requires us to become as the poor in the sense of not being shackled in bondage to things, to stuff, to property, and thus more free to re-situate at will and begin anew than if there was attachment to much things and assets" ([MAHARAL] in his commentary on Haggadah shel Pesach, on Ha Lach'ma An'ya).

Ironically, in the Torah's account of the Jewish people's liberation from bondage in Egypt, they are instructed to eat only Matzah, to adopt a consciousness of "less," of simplicity and elementals -- yet, at the same time, they are also immersed in enrichment. They are given tons of gold, silver, copper, in jewelry, implements and utensils, in addition to flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and anything else they needed for their journey home (Exodus 12:35-38). So what's with this Matzah business, when the exodus was certainly not a time of simplicity consciousness? And what is meant by the reason for Matzah being that they didn't have time to allow the dough to rise because they were being hurried out of the land (Exodus 12:39)? The fact is that they had plenty of time to bake normal enriched loaves of bread before they left. They were readied for the exodus days before and then instructed to have a ritual sit-down feast the night before they were to actually leave (Exodus 12:11), and didn't actually leave until the following morning (Exodus 12:23)!

Then - listen to this - then, when forty-nine days later they arrive at Mount Sinai for the Great Revelation, they are told to commemorate this most special, most holy, most momentous event of the entire exodus with an offering that had to include not Matzah but Chametz (Leviticus 23:17)! Chametz was the requirement for the ritual celebration of Shavuot, of the Revelatory experience at Sinai. One would suppose that the offerings for this lofty event ought to be Matzah, the spiritual Bread of Simplicity, absent all the superfluity and enrichment of Chametz! Yet, it's the other way around - Bread of Abstinence for the occasion of enrichment, and Bread of Enrichment for the occasion of abstinence. Bread of Scarcity for the time our ancestors were weighed down with gold and silver in their exodus from Egypt, and Bread of Plenty for the time our ancestors were instructed to become abstinent in preparation for receiving the Revelation at Sinai (Exodus 19:10-14). Matzah for when we gorged ourselves on the flesh of lamb, and Chametz for when Moses fasted forty days and forty nights (Exodus 34:28).

This is not a question. This is the very lesson inherent in the ritual of Cha'metz and Matzah. It is about a life lived in balance betwixt both. This is Judaism 101, a way of living that is neither about simplicity nor superfluity, but both; that is neither about spirituality nor physicality, but both; that is neither about abstinence or indulgence, but both. And that any attempt to live one way to the dismissal of the other is doomed to failure, subject to distortion, and bound to go the way of most relics and end up in the museum.

The lesson of the rituals of Chametz and Matzah, and each their respective place in our lives is played-out daily in front of our eyes in the drama of fundamentalism across the religious denominational board. Religious extremism emerges out of an obsession with Matzah consciousness to the dismissal of Chametz consciousness no less than hedonistic extremism emerges out of an obsession with Chametz consciousness to the dismissal of Matzah consciousness. Our ancestors were being taught that during those times when we are being enriched we need to remember where the gift of that enrichment is coming from, lest we declare: "My own power and the might of my own hand has made possible all of this accomplishment" (Deuteronomy 8:17), and so they were told to eat the Bread of Simplicity not because they didn't have time to bake normal bread but because they "could not delay" as in they were instructed not to focus too long on the physical form of their enrichment to the point of losing awareness its spiritual origin. And by the same token, they were instructed during the time of the Great Divine Revelation at Sinai to not lose themselves in the ecstasy of Spirit to the neglect of the gift of Embodiment by celebrating ritually with Chametz.

So on Passover, the Israelites were told to "not delay," to not allow the dough to rise any longer than, say, 15-18 minutes, which explains what happened during the incident of the Golden Calf when those of the fundamental extreme sort were still stuck on Matzah consciousness when the time now called for Chametz consciousness, and being stuck on Matzah consciousness, they reacted with extremism when Moses "delayed" in returning when he was supposed to! He did not come down from the mountain within those proverbial 15-18 minutes, which, to the fundamental extremists still stuck in Matzah consciousness, made Moses Chametz! And so they willingly yanked off their forms of enrichment, their Chametz, ear-rings, nose rings and the such, and cast them into the Fire, into the Matzah oven, and it turned into exactly what it was that they were worshiping by being stuck in one way of seeing things: an idol, a Golden Calf, an edifice of gold, of Chametz, which Moses then melts down for them to drink (Exodus 32:20) in order to imbue them with their own Chametz, their own inner demons that had compelled them to react as they did to Moses' delay, to Moses returning from the Realm of Spirit with two stone tablets comprised of both Matzah and Chametz, of spirit and the embodiment of spirit.

The lesson of Chametz and Matzah is an important one, to do our best to walk neither to the extreme left nor the extreme right but to bide our time somewhere in between, knowing when to tune into our Matzah consciousness, in times when we are blessed with the enrichment of physical indulgence, and when to tune into our Chametz consciousness, such as in times when we are blessed with the inspiration of spiritual elation. Like the second-century Rabbi El'azar ben Azariah taught: "If there is no flour, there is no Torah; and if there is no Torah, there is no flour" (Mishnah, Avot 3:17).

chanoch's Commentary

This teaching is for Pesach and Shavuot. There is a similar Chasidic Teaching for all year. One is to have in his pocket two pieces of paper. In his right pocket he is to have written "You are the Son/Daughter of a King. In his left pocket he is to have written "You come from a putrid drop of sperm."

When you are feeling "on top of the world", when your ego is growing, take the paper out of your left pocket and read about your beginning - from sperm. When you are feeling down, take the paper out of your right pocket and Remember You are the Son/Daughter of a King.

It is always about the center column, the balance point. It is always about living in balance and staying away from the extremes. Remember this lesson when the Astrological Forces of Nissan are pushing you into wars battles and conflicts. Where is your balance point?

In our next class we will study the Seder by looking at the relationship of the Seder plate to the Magen David - Shield of David often translated as the Star of David. In case we have time this day i want to mention the difference between the Magen Solomon and the Magen David. Sometimes these two items are used interchangeably but actually they are two different things. The Magen Solomon is two squares that are offset versus each other and thus have 8 points. The Magen David has six points since they are two offset triangles. One day i hope to give a class explaining how the Magen David is also a representation of the Tree of Life and that is why Rabbi Ashlag cautions us to not utilize the various glyffs as that 2 dimensional picture stops us from realizing the full extent of the true picture which can only be seen within our imagination.