More than a simple wafer eaten thousands of years ago, matzah represents the entire Exodus experience, from the pain of slavery to the joy of emancipation. The Egyptians fed us matzah when we were slaves; it was a high-carbohydrate, low-cost, filling way to feed their slaves. Matzah came to represent bitterness to the Jewish people.  However, as much as matzah was the bitter bread of affliction for so many slaves, in an instant it became the eternal bread of freedom for a nation.

The significance of matzah illuminates its many qualities and shows how it is not merely something we consume, but an experience that transcends simple symbolism. While we would expect to find many intricate laws of Pesach that would best express the nature of matzah, I’d like to show how it is specifically laws on erev Pesach that best reflect matzah’s meaning. Hopefully this will add a new experience to each and every bite of matzah consumed this Pesach.

In contrast to Sukkos and Shavuos, where we simply commemorate past events, on Pesach we relive the Exodus experience. It is not enough to raise our matzos in the air and pronounce that this matzah comes to represent our past tribulations and salvation, but with each and every bite we are to return to the times of our ancestors, feel what they felt, eat what they ate, all in order to best understand the gratitude they felt towards their Creator. As we chew our matzah, each painstaking bite is designed to put us back in the desert, enduring backbreaking labor and rejoicing over the sweet taste of freedom, all in order to better understand the gratitude we have towards our Creator for continued freedom. The newfound appreciation of our Creator lifts us to new heights of perfection, making us better people with a stronger connection to God.

Rambam states three laws in regards to matzah on erev Pesach: a prohibition of eating matzah on erev Pesach, designed to act as a marker for the night’s uniqueness; a prohibition of eating a meal close to mincha on erev Pesach, a general prohibition on erev Shabbos and Pesach to increase one’s appetite for the meal, but dissimilarly aimed at whetting one’s appetite specifically for matzah; and the practice of limiting eating on the entire day, intended to ensure the matzah’s consumption be with extreme hunger, and to ensure that we treasure all mitzvos.

These laws of erev Pesach, unique to all other erev Shabbos and Yom Tov laws seem to point to a different explanation of the mitzvah to eat matzah. It would seem it is not sufficient to merely eat matzah, but one must eat it out of anticipation, hungering for its taste. We’ve all eaten matzah, and while we might hunger for the main course’s vast array of delicacies, it is rare to find someone clamoring for a piece of matzah.

Eating matzah out of dire hunger is unrealistic; this is not the correct understanding of these laws. Matzah wasn’t supposed to be eaten out of a ravenous desire for the taste of a dry cracker; it is the experience we are to anticipate. We aren’t holding back from the taste of matzah on erev Pesach, but rather it is the reliving of the transformation from slavery to emancipation that we desire. It is this experience of joy that leads to gratitude which strengthens our relationship with God that we are to await for. The mitzvah of matzah lasts seven days, and if we put our minds to it, so can our experience.