Eat to your heart’s content

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How big were the original matzot that baked on the Isrealites’ backs as they left Egypt? We may never know, although in recent years archaeology has become much better at identifying ancient bread. For tonight’s historical reconstruction, the script calls for participants to consume an amount equivalent to the Rabbinic measure of an olive-bulk, a kezayit. Understanding how much that is in matzah and maror is something which archaeology, particularly archaeobotany, can contribute to. Moreover, this issue has a moral component well-attuned to the themes of the Seder night.

In Jewish law, the kezayit is the minimal amount at which consumption is considered achila, ‘eating’. This has numerous halachic applications, among them the minimum quantity of matzah and maror one must consume to fulfil the commandment of eating them at the Seder. The complex halachic discourse on the kezayit is based on attempts to reconcile various Jewish sources for comparative measures, including the volume of an egg, the size of a mouthful, and the weight Maimonides’ dirham coin. It also involves questions on the historical stability of human bodily proportions, chicken egg sizes, and of course, the olive itself. Today, the two widely accepted halachic approaches—of the Chazon Ish and Rav Avraham Chaim Naeh—view the kezayit as much larger than familiar olives, but there are sources for Torah scholars of the last 200 years considering it to be a truly olive-sized amount even for matzah on Passover. Ultimately, uncertainty regarding the size of an olive in ancient Israel is a product of the Jewish people’s long exile. Concomitant with the contemporary Jewish return to Israel, renewal of connection to the land, its agriculture, and its ancient material culture, archaeology offers a new source for this question.

In a pioneering article in the periodical Tchumin,[1] Prof. Mordechai Kislev summarized measurements of hundreds of ancient olive stones (from Masada during the time of the Great Revolt and from the 7^th century CE site of Shlomi in the Galilee), attempting to identify the three varieties of olives referred to in the Mishna (Kelim 17:8): “The olive of which they spoke it is one that is neither big nor small but of moderate size, the egori.” As further clarified in a later article,[2] the archaeobotanical evidence robustly supports the historical stability of certain varieties of olive in the land of Israel and their size ranges. This is further supported by the existence of very ancient living, fruit-bearing olive trees.

Halachically relevant motivations for returning to a smaller kezayit include the difficulty of eating large amounts of matzah and maror for many people, and the prohibition against achila gasa—which may include eating with the wrong intentions or in a disrespectful manner, especially when full or starving. Jewish law prohibits saying a blessing on food consumed by achila gasa and the Talmud specifically singles out eating the Paschal sacrifice in this manner as an example of a transgressor’s wrongdoing (Bavli, Horiyot 10b). Equipped with convincing arguments and motivations for amending current halachic understandings of the kezayit, Kislev and another expert on Rabbinic measurements attained an audience a few years ago with a leading halachic authority in Bnei Brak to receive an authoritative affirmation, or psak. The attempt was unsuccessful but, in some circles at least, it is probably only a matter of time before future appeals succeed and a much smaller kezayit gains wide halachic acceptance.

Meanwhile, let us consider some moral implications of the size of an ancient olive. Matzah on Passover symbolizes bread of affliction, or poor man’s bread. As such, it contrasts to the puffy, ‘haughty’ bread that symbolizes the mighty ancient Egyptian empire. Maror reminds us of the bitterness of slavery. Considering these themes of poverty and servitude, we should appreciate that most Jews today enjoy the best of both worlds—we live in materially prosperous nations where we are also free to maintain our traditions and openly practice our religion. Collectively, we are both free and wealthy. But this fortunate combination also comes with pitfalls.

The 14^th century social theorist, Ibn Khaldun, thought that ruling dynasties followed a cycle of four generations. First, the pioneering generation builds up its dynasty from scratch through hard work, humility, mutual respect and collective action. The second generation maintains its noble character by a direct connection to its pioneering parents. The third generation does so by memory, by tradition. Finally, the fourth generation forgets that tradition, becomes too comfortable, haughty, and submerged in a morally degenerate life of ease and luxury. It succumbs to a new dynasty which has the vigour and vitality afforded by group cohesion in the face of adversity. Interestingly, Ibn Khaldun uses as an example Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with Joseph reaching the peak of family prestige. On his reading, the Israelites’ decline into servitude left the generation of the exodus lacking in group cohesion and the confidence to take on the giants of Canaan. Ibn Khaldun considers the Israelites’ sojourning in the wilderness to be a reboot of the dynastic cycle in which a new generation instilled with values and collective cohesion emerges. The continuation of the cycle is foreshadowed in Deuteronomy (31:20):

For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swore unto their fathers, flowing with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten their fill, and waxen fat; and turned unto other gods, and served them, and despised Me, and broken My covenant.

The implication is that out of the material blessing comes the curse of haughtiness, gluttony, and moral decline. Indeed, these qualities can be especially difficult to avoid in affluent, materialistic society.

What then is the antidote to all this? In terms of Ibn Khaldun’s model, how can we avoid the decline of the fourth generation without having to endure the hardships of a first generation? The answer is that we can extend our third-generation status to our children and grandchildren via tradition, via Torah. This is prescribed, among other places, in the above chapter in Deuteronomy. By remembering the values of the pioneering generation, we maintain our third-generation status and keep moral degeneration at bay.

On Seder night we celebrate our humble past and rise to freedom. We remember what it is to be unfree by recounting the story of slavery in Egypt. We remember what it is to be poor by eating matzah and putting away the bigger piece for later. Perhaps we remember how our forefathers got by with little. Understanding what a kezayit really was can help us collectively remember what that might have been like. When we do so, we tune into a past that keeps us going in the future—and offers a moral antidote to haughtiness, gluttony, and complacency.

[1] Kislev, M.E. 1989. An olive bulk: the olive fruit as an ancient unit of capacity. Tchumin 10: 427–437.

[2] Kislev, M.E. 2005. It’s all in the eye of the beholder: reviewing the evaluation of the kezait, the volume of an olive. BDD 16: 77–90, 95–96 (in Hebrew, English summary).

haggadah Section: Motzi-Matzah

Source: Daniel Fuks