We are meant to fully experience the flatness and blandness of the matzah , not to mention its visual similarity to cardboard. This is a food that has no real identity of its own. It is completely ready to receive.

Matzah is compared to manna. The Jews ate matzah when they left Egypt, but it had the taste of manna. And manna tasted like whatever you wanted it to taste like (but could it be made to taste like a donut on Pesach, or at least rice?) The matzah , too, is empty. It is ready to be impressed upon: in the physical world, by a nice schmeer of guacamole; and in the spiritual world by the profound spiritual imprint that Hashem wants to impress upon each of us.  Eating matzah aligns us toward receptivity to whatever Hashem wants us to have.

Unlike most foods, matzah is essentially free of a third dimension. It is flat.  It has not yet 'grown' 'up'.   But this is because Hashem wants us not to grow in the usual way.  He has a different third dimension in mind for us, one that does not follow the rules of linear growth.  We eat the bread of no-identity so that we can achieve the level of no-identity.  And then He gives us a sense of Holy Identity.

Inasmuch as we are attached to identity, we cannot completely receive Holy Identity.   As we eat the matzah , then, let us strive to become like the matzah as much as we can, so that we can be impressed upon by Hashem who engraves upon us. 

' Motzi ', then, is the process of leaving behind identification with our original context, and ' matzah ' is the process of staying 'empty' in order to receive.

Eating matzah is beginning of something entirely new.  It clears out the old you and creates the possibility of the new you emerging – freer, more connected, more alive. 


haggadah Section: Motzi-Matzah
Source: original