Matzah: A history of the Pesach staple
21 April 2011
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Today we hear grumblings about the price of matzah, but not about its availability. You can easily find it at your local grocery or order it through your yeshiva or shul. Living in a thriving Jewish community does have its perks.
Throughout history, that last bit held true: If you lived in a Jewish community, you could pretty much be guaranteed matzah for your Pesach table. If not, you had to fend for yourself.
Joseph Joel of Cleveland, Ohio, was a soldier in the Yankee Army in America’s Civil War in the spring of 1862, The Jerusalem Post reports.
As Pesach neared, Joel and fellow Jewish soldiers obtained their commander’s permission to send their army provisioner to buy matzah. The man returned with seven barrels full of it on erev Pesach, as well as with two haggadahs and siddurim he had managed to find.
With two kegs of cider, a lamb, several chickens and eggs, and a bitter plant, the men in uniform managed to put together something of a seder. Without ingredients for charoset, they thought a brick a fitting substitute.
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Early matzahs were baked with decorative shapes of doves, animals and flowers. Some were even baked in the form of chains, symbolic of the Egyptian slavery.
Rabbis in the Talmudic times ruled the decoration and thickness required for the chain shape could cause the matazh to become chametz, and so the thin, no-frills version we know so well took its place. Before baking, matzah was perforated to ensure it would not rise.
The exception was in North African Jewish communities, where matza was so thick it had to be crumbled before eating.
For more historical matzah anecdotes, see David Geffen’s piece in The Jerusalem Post.
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