The Long-Short Road and the Short-Long Road Rabbi Josh Warshawsky, CJHS 2008

And Rabbi Yehoshua smiled and replied, “How fortunate are you, O Israel, that all of your people, from old to young, are so wise!” (Eruvin 53b).

How often do we choose one path assuming it is a shortcut, only to realize that we didn’t gain what we needed from that particular journey, or that the arrival wasn’t really all we thought it would be.

How often do we jump headfirst into something assuming we can just figure it out as we go, only to be forced to backtrack later to regroup or start anew. Our preparations and intentions matter! And the skills we learn along the way equip us for anything we may encounter in the future.

As the people of Israel finally leave Egypt with the Egyptians on their tails, we read in Parashat Beshalach: “Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Phillistines, although it was nearer; for God said, “The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.” So God led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds. Now the Israelites went up armed out of the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 13:17-18). that God took the people of Israel on the long-short road! Perhaps heading through the land of the Philistines would have been quicker, but the people of Israel needed time to understand who they were and who they wanted to become.

They needed time in the desert to learn what it meant to be a free nation. As a result, it says the people of Israel were “Chamushim,” “armed.”

What were they armed with? They were equipped with their experiences, stories, memories, and a renewed sense of self, to carry them through towards their destination.

On this journey that we’ve been on this year, one we thought would be short but turned out to be very long, we have lost too many along the way, and it is perhaps clear that we should have chosen the long but short journey instead. But now that we are here, what have we gained from the journey?

What have we learned about ourselves? What have we learned about our families and our communities? What have we learned about determination and resilience?

As we enter the holiday of Passover and this new season of Spring and regrowth, may we internalize these lessons, hold each other close, and together envision what the future will hold.

םיתשלפ ץרא ךרד םיקלא םחנ–אלו םיקלא רמא יכ אוה בורק יכ המחלמ םתארב םעה םחני–ןפ :המירצמ ובשו ףוס–םי רבדמה ךרד םעה תא םיקלא בסיו :םירצמ ץראמ לארשי–ינב ולע םישמחו

Now when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Phillistines, although it was nearer; for God said, ‘The people may have a change of heart when they see war, and return to Egypt.’ So God led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds. Now the Israelites went up armed out of the land of Egypt.

-Exodus 13:17-18

On this journey that we’ve been on this year, one we thought would be short but turned out to be very long, we have lost too many along the way, and it is perhaps clear that we should have chosen the long but short journey instead. But now that we are here, what have we gained from the journey?

What have we learned about ourselves? What have we learned about our families and our communities? What have we learned about determination and resilience? As we enter the holiday of Passover and this new season of Spring and regrowth, may we internalize these lessons, hold each other close, and together envision what the future will hold.

The invisible, yet unimaginably powerful elements of nature invoke in me a sense of divine wonder. Similarly, we can perhaps imagine that for the ancient Israelites, who also baked sourdough bread, the seemingly supernatural creation of a living, sour mixture that made their bread rise involved a prayer of gratitude to and trust in God.

But wait — why am I writing about bread when I was tasked to provide an insight about Passover? Indeed, the Torah commands us in Exodus 12:15: “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread: on the very first day you shall remove leaven from your houses.” No consumption of bread for one week. That seems pretty clear, right? Maybe.

Knowing the centrality and sheer importance of bread in history, it is nothing less than shocking that the Torah commands us not to consume the satisfying, puffy loaves for an entire week. If we are commanded to remove leavened bread from our homes, to even go so far as to strip our lives of all things even remotely reminiscent of a leavening process, we must ask: on a deeper level, what might leavened bread represent? And why might this be significant for us as Jews today?

Well, here’s one attempt at an answer: The process of bread making tells a story — a story that we, as Jews, can relate to quite well. The process of bread making starts with one seed. The seed proliferates, germinates, and grows into stalks of wheat. The wheat is harvested, dried, and pulverized into flour. This exhausted, broken down unidentifiable incarnation of wheat is mixed with This living mixture matures and ferments over time, becoming resilient, powerful, and vigorous, able to itself give life. Similarly, the Jewish people stem from one seed: Abraham. As God promises Abraham, his seed proliferates, becoming increasingly numerous, generation after generation. As is preordained, Abraham’s descendents make their way to Egypt, where they are broken down, pulverized into slaves, barely recognizable of the people they once were.

But their cries are heard and they too are revived through God’s breath of life in the form of Torah. They too are resuscitated as a people by God in their deliverance from the hands of the Egyptians. They too mature over time, becoming resilient, powerful, and vigorous, able to themselves give life. The story of the Exodus, from Abraham to slavery to freedom, from seed to destruction to revival, parallels the creation story of history’s central food: bread.

It is notable that the process of making matzah can take no more than eighteen minutes from start to finish. While this number might seem arbitrary, perhaps it is deliberate. In gematria, the number eighteen corresponds to the word “chai,” or life.

In order to be considered matzah, the entire creation process of this “bread” must not reach the threshold of life symbolized by eighteen minutes. In this way, matzah is, essentially, dead. If there is even a slight suspicion of vitality, it is not fit for use on Passover.

Knowing the centrality and sheer importance of bread in history, it is nothing less than shocking that the Torah commands us not to consume the satisfying, puffy loaves for an entire week. If we are commanded to remove leavened bread from our homes, to even go so far as to strip our lives of all things even remotely reminiscent of a leavening process, we must ask: on a deeper level, what might leavened bread represent? And why might this be significant for us as Jews today? In order to be considered matzah, the entire creation process of this “bread” must not reach the threshold of life symbolized by eighteen minutes. In this way, matzah is, essentially, dead.

dough starter, matzah is lifeless, breath-less, suffocated. It seems, then, that bread rather than matzah is a better symbol of our growth into a nation as a result of the Exodus.

In celebration of this miracle, why aren’t we commanded to eat more bread on Passover rather than a week full of matzah? What can matzah teach us?

Perhaps we eat matzah on Passover as a yearly reminder of what we would have been without God’s redemption, without God’s breath of life being breathed into a nation that transformed it from a broken-down, pulverized group of slaves into a prosperous nation of God.

Indeed, we eat matzah on Passover not only as a visceral reminder of who we were before we were redeemed by God but more importantly of who we are always in danger of becoming without the moral commandments that are inextricably connected to the fact of our redemption. This is why we are commanded to see ourselves as if we also left Egypt. Without the Torah, we are nothing more than matzah: lifeless, immoral, unguided. With the Torah, we are bread: full of life, virtuous, upright. To the Israelites, seeing how a lifeless mix of flour and water magically turns into a substance that could make their bread rise was a representation of God’s continued presence. It was representative of the partnership between humans and God: As human beings, we can bring out the seed into the field, but God causes it to grow.

As human beings, we can grind the seed and mix it with water, but God breathes life into it and makes sourdough. In this way, leavened bread is the symbol of the covenant where each side (humans and God) work together to help sustain life and bring goodness into the world. It is nonetheless important that we eat matzah each year on Passover to be reminded of what is at stake if we neglect to uphold our end of the contract. As long as we are active partners in this relationship, God will breathe new life into our work and transform our matzah into bread.

*I want to thank my husband, Oliver Braunschweig, for providing the inspiration for this devar Torah and for helping me expand upon these thoughts every step of the way.

Indeed, we eat matzah on Passover not only as a visceral reminder of who we were before we were redeemed by God but more importantly of who we are always in danger of becoming without the moral commandments that are inextricably connected to the fact of our redemption. This is why we are commanded to see ourselves as if we also left Egypt. Without the Torah, we are nothing more than matzah: lifeless, immoral, unguided. With the Torah, we are bread: full of life, virtuous, upright.