The Box of Matzah

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I am standing in an American supermarket, spoiled for choice.

There, at my feet, are more boxes of my childhood matza than my five person family could have consumed in a year of Passover. Just above the level of my head are the coveted shmura matzot, that were hand-delivered to our house every year, as a personal favor to my father by the local Chabad rabbi.

There is matza of every description. Spelt matza, and whole wheat, egg, and plain. Matza made for every taste and dietary need.

I can't eat matza. The long chain sugars in wheat are hard for me to digest, and it makes me sick for almost a week if I try. I spent a lot of passovers trying to eat matza anyway, as if somehow the performance of the mitzvah could take away the pain in my gut.

Over the years I've tried all the others too, but as of three years ago, my matza is rice crackers.

I know it's not traditional. If anyone knows about tradition, it's me. Raised on the egalitarian edge of Conservative Judaism, but with rules, as my father likes to say "a little to the right of Ghengis Khan".

I fought with my father for a heter (a personal exception) to eat kitniyot (traditionally forbiden foods including rice, beans, peas and lentils) for years before it was something we agreed to disagree on. Finally the Conservative movement came through for me, and I buy my rice crackers. And I eat them at the seder, being careful to keep them off the seder plate.

The people who wrote the tshuva (answer, or new rules) on kitniyot will always have a place at my seder table. They have helped me bring the joy back to Passover, which was a favorite childhood holiday. Ironically, one of the authors of the tshuva is someone who I helped with Passover cleaning in my college dorm at Jewish Theological Seminary about twenty years ago, and I remember the two of us grousing about how ridiculous the kitniyot restrictions were as we stood together, winded from breathing too much oven cleaner.

If the rabbis of old could eat rice and peas at their seders, why not us?

Meanwhile, I need to buy matza for my family. I select boxes of the Aviv, the Galil, and the Yehoshua, because people have opinions, even if it's mostly that matza makes the best cheese crackers after Passover. I buy the egg matza for my sister to eat with her soup, and I know, that waiting at home, we have the much cherished grape and orange matza, sent as a present by a friend in France.

I gingerly take the shmura matzas off the shelf, hoping that this year we will be rewarded with a few pieces unbroken, as well as the usual jigsaw of bits we'll use to make matzanya (like lasagna, but with matza) and matza pizza.

And yes, that's a "we" that doesn't include me. There's nothing in a matza pizza that my body considers food.

I often say that on this diet, every day tastes like passover for me, but every year, for eight days, I get to share what I experience with everyone else. It's a strange thing to celebrate, but it feels better to share affliction than to suffer alone.

Maybe in the future things will be different. For now, it's enough for me to provide for my family, and be together. Dayanu.

haggadah Section: Motzi-Matzah

Source: Original - written for haggadot.com