What We Do
Carefully release the bottom matzah. Recite the blessing on the remaining whole matzah and the broken matzah: "Blessed be You, L-rd our G‑d, King of the World, Who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us concerning eating matzah."
Break off a piece from each of the two matzos for yourself and for each of those sitting at your table. Pass them around.
What we're doing is covering both our bases, ensuring that we experience both the poverty and humility that matzah represents (the broken matzah) and the freedom and healing it brings (the whole matzah).
Supplement the two pieces of matzah from the Seder Plate with more matzah, so that everybody gets at least 2 oz. of matzah altogether (about two thirds of a large shemura matzah.)
Hey, it’s a mitzvah after all!
Don’t forget to recline to the left while you munch—just like with the wine.
What It Means
Since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, matzah is the only opportunity we have to actually eat a mitzvah. That’s right, the matzah you are eating is pure G‑dliness. In fact, it has enough G‑dly energy to blast your soul out of the deepest ditch into the highest heights.
The Zohar calls matzah “Bread of Faith” and “Bread of Healing”. Did I say “faith?” Well, actually, that’s a rather feeble translation. “Emunah” is the word in Hebrew, and it means a lot more than “I believe, brother!” Faith can often be something people rely upon when they don’t care to think too much. Emunah is when you go beyond thinking and you get somewhere your mind could have never brought you to.
Emunah is when you touch that place where your soul and the essence of the Infinite Light are one. It’s a point that nothing can describe. Where there are no words, no doubts, no uncertainty, no confusion—nothing else but a magnificent oneness before which all the challenges of life vanish like a puff of vapor.
Eating matzah is a means of plugging your entire self into that reservoir. Your physical body digests the Emunah of your soul, everything is integrated back into one, your body and spirit are whole and harmonious.
How on earth, you may ask, can a mixture of water and wheat from the ground baked in an oven contain a spiritual cure? Well, welcome to the Jewish People, where there is no dichotomy of spirit and matter, soul and body. Where the spiritual transforms into physicality and material objects rise to become spiritual in a perpetual chemistry of exchange. Where bodies are healed by empowering the soul and souls are nourished by the rituals of the body.
After all, we live in the world of a single G‑d.
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