Matzo Matters!

Maybe now in the rare quiet moments before the holiday it might be appropriate to explore this matter of matzo. For starters, what’s the matter with matzo? Lots. Even one of its names hints to a problem. Matzo is called lechem oni by the Torah and by the Haggadah. It is a phrase that seems straightforward - lechem oni, bread of our affliction. The source is a verse which commands, “eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, for you departed from the land of Egypt hurriedly, so that you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt all the days of your life.” Devarim 16:3.
Bread of affliction, sounds not quite appetizing. Very little is simple or one dimensional in Torah and lechem oni is no exception. What does “poor bread” mean? What makes matzo, bread of affliction, lechem oni? The ingredients? The ancient consumers? The occasion of its eating? The method of its cooking? Its appearance? Maybe the mode of consumption? Or even the effect of its eating? Each of these categories are possibilities cited on pages of Torah, Talmud and the Haggadah itself. Why is matzo lechem oni? And why does it matter?
Here are some answers. A poor person eats broken pieces of bread, never a whole. Who knows if there will be more? We break our matzo in half and put a piece away for later, afikoman. Matzo is bread for the poor. Two ingredients only, flour and water. No salt, no sugar, no oil. It is poor bread, not rich. Our ancestors had to rush to bake their bread in Egypt, the taskmasters gave them no rest. We bake our matzo speedily to prevent it from rising. Our ancestors had little time the night they were leaving-they grabbed their unleavened bread and ran out. We don’t allow our dough the time to rise. Matzo is flat, very humble-a poor appearance if you will. Lechem oni? Poor indeed is the one who consumes it for they will suffer in its digestion. It is poor bread.
An alternate translation of the word on, is from the root to answer. We recite words over the matzo and answer questions concerning it. This is the bread of many words. There is a lot to say about matzo, it matters.
Truth is multifaceted and each of these answers woven together form a picture consistent with the verse. We eat matzo, lechem oni in order to recall the day we departed from Egypt. We have a lot to remember concerning that day. The rush, the panic, our deprived lives till then and the glory of our redemption. Most of all we are enjoined to remember the pain of being a slave. The pain of not being in control of our time and space, the pain of poverty and the constraints of spirit.
It is odd that the verse tells us to eat this bread of distress on Pesach night in order to remember the exodus all the days of our life. How can the eating of matzo once a year provide us with the memory of redemption for a whole year? Perhaps we should have been enjoined to eat matzo every day of our lives? Lechem oni each day.
Of course not. That is the very point. To eat poor bread every day would be to recreate our pain and poverty each day - we cannot thrive that way. To lead a life of Torah we need to move on, to lead lives of richness and with true appreciation of this world. But on Seder night we eat our lechem oni and we concentrate on its complex message for its taste must last the whole year long. Eating matzo matters.