Pesach D'var Torah

deedee

Thu, Apr 14 2005, 1:53 pm

Quote:

A World of difference:

We celebrate the festival of Passover by eradicating all chametz (leavened foods) from our home and replacing it with matzah, the unleavened bread. The Chassidic masters explain that in order to re-experience the freedom of the Exodus -- the moment in history that liberated our souls from all and any future forms of slavery -- we must eradicate the chametz from our souls and replace it with matzah.

Chametz -- grain that has fermented and bloated -- represents that swelling of ego that enslaves the soul more than any external prison.

The flat, unpretentious matzah represents the humility, self-effacement and commitment that are the ultimate liberators of the human spirit.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe points out that the liberating quality of matzah is also shown in the forms of the Hebrew letters that spell the words "chametz" and "matzah". The spelling of these two words are very similar (just as a piece of bread and a piece of matzah are made of the same basic ingredients) -- chametz is spelled chet, mem, tzadi; matzah is spelled mem, tzadi, hei. So the only difference is the difference between the chet and the hei -- which, as the illustration above shows, is also slight. Both the chet and the hei have the form of a three sided enclosure, open at the bottom; the difference being that the hei has a small "escape hatch" near the top of its left side.

Which is all the difference in the world.