Passover is filled with seeming contradictions. We take part in the Seder, meaning order, while the holiday name, Pesach, focuses on skipping over. Matzah is called both the bread of affliction and the bread of redemption. 

An old Passover tradition may give us insight into the double meaning. During shtetl times, the community would take part in a “podrad,” a cooperative enterprise that enabled the poor to bake matzos for the community and, in this way, earn a few rubles and do a mitzvah. This tradition still persists in Hasidic circles. Gorin mentions seven roles assigned to the podrad participants: A water pourer, a flour pourer, a roller, a kneader, a perforator, someone who sets the matzos in the oven and the person who chooses the matzos from the bench.

In Yiddish literature, the podrad is usually portrayed as lively, happy work. But Gorin describes it differently: “The workers needed to take frequent naps because the job wasn’t easy. They had to stand on their feet 14 hours a day and roll the dough again and again until their hands swelled up and all their limbs ached.”

For the needy in the community, the matzah symbolized both their affliction and their redemption. 


haggadah Section: Motzi-Matzah
Source: "What Was Passover Like Before WWII? 5 Facts You May Not Know" by Itzik Gottesman