Judaism’s Bread Complex Judaism has a complicated relationship with bread. All year long bread is considered the staple of sustenance, as the verse states “bread, which sustains man's heart.” During the holiday of Passover, however, bread is the enemy. Not only are we not permitted to eat bread, but we are not allowed to benefit from or even own any bread. If bread is so terrible on Passover, why is it celebrated all year long? We find this dichotomy in the temple as well. All bread offered in the temple was unleavened, as the verse states: No meal offering that you sacrifice to the Lord shall be made [out of anything] leavened. For you shall not cause to [go up in] smoke any leavening or any honey, [as] a fire offering to the Lord; (2:11) Yet, there were a few exceptions. On the holiday of Shavuot there was an offering of two loaves of Chametz (leavened) bread. In addition, in this week’s portion, we read that the thanksgiving offering was offered with loaves of leavened bread: Along with loaves of leavened bread, he shall bring his offering along with his thanksgiving peace offering. (Leviticus 7:13) Which begs the same question: if leavened bread is off limits in the temple, why is it offered on the holiday of Shavuot and together with the thanksgiving offering? Bread, which is made from dough that was left to rise, represents inflated ego, the intense feeling of self. Matzah, by contrast, is flat and represents humility. Therefore, in the temple, where we come to stand before G-d, where we seek to submit to and be subsumed within, the divine presence, there is no room for the feeling of self. The Torah therefore tells us not to offer any leavened bread. That’s because we come to the temple in order to escape the confines of the ego and connect to the infinity of G-d. Therefore we don’t offer any bread which resembles the inflated ego. The same is true regarding Passover. The moment of the exodus from Egypt is the moment of the birth of our people. The foundation of our spiritual identity is humility before G-d. Therefore, for a full week we eradicate all traces of bread, symbolizing that we seek to rid ourselves of any trace of self orientation and we commit ourselves to a purpose greater than ourselves. After a full week of Passover (outside of Israel we celebrate an eighth day), once we internalize the feeling of humility in all our seven emotional attributes, which correspond to the seven days of the week, we can begin to introduce bread into our spiritual diet. After a full week of experiencing humility we achieve an even greater spiritual accomplishment: we align our sense of self, our desire and pleasure, with the Divine will. On Passover we transcend ourselves, after Passover the self is transformed to want to connect to holiness. This explains why leavened bread was offered on Shavuot, the holiday which celebrates the giving of the Torah. The Torah represents wisdom which, in the Kabbalah, is synonymous with humility. When one studies the Torah and internalizes its teachings, the “bread”, the ego, the sense of self, is transformed and it too experiences a relationship with G-d. The same is true regarding the bread offered with the thanksgiving offering. The Hebrew word for thanksgiving (Todah) is related to the word for acknowledgement and submission to another’s opinion. That's because thanksgiving and humility are related. For an arrogant person never feels grateful because he feels entitled to everything. Only when someone is humble, is he able to feel that he is undeserving of the gifts he received, and therefore he experiences a feeling of gratitude. The person offering the thanksgiving offering, then, is in a state of humility, therefore he can then offer leavened bread, signifying, that when predicated on humility, the ego itself can be transformed to holiness. (Adapted from Torah Or, Tehilim page 984)
ב"ה