Bo: the Battle with Technology

The story in this parsha is familiar. It is the story of the Exodus from Egypt. The retelling of the story is the core of the Passover seder, the ritual meal that reunites and joins that family to the Jewish people.

The prohibition of leavened bread is a key ingredient in the Passover observance.

The Torah says

כִּ֣י ׀ כׇּל־אֹכֵ֣ל חָמֵ֗ץ וְנִכְרְתָ֞ה הַנֶּ֤פֶשׁ הַהִוא֙ מִיִּשְׂרָאֵ֔ל

for whoever eats leavened bread ... that person shall be cut off from Israel.

The rejection of leavened bread on Passover is a deep, fundamental act. Many Reform Jews, who do not keep kosher, would never eat leavened on Passover. Chametz (leavened food) is a very different prohibition from the ban on pork. To eat leavened bread on Passover is to be cut off from Israel, to have left the people.

The penalty for eating leavened on Passover is a type of Divinely administered capital punishment, כְרְתָ֞, kareth. The ancient tabulators of the Torah counted 613 mitzvoth (commandments) . Only 36 are punished with Kareth. Partaking of the Passover ritual and male circumcision are the only two positive commandments that warrant this severe kareth punishment. Currently, since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem ( 70 CE), eating matzoh (unleavened bread) on the night of Passover constitutes the fulfillment of that commandment (and the protection from kareth).

Why are the prohibition on chametz ( leavened food) and the associated eating of matzoh (unleavened bread) so important? Why is this abstinence from leavened food (for a week) an act that is required for membership in the nation (and spares those who partake from an untimely death)?

Many conceptual symbols are attached to matzah. In Deuteronomy (16;3) when the Passover ritual is recalled, matzoh is assigned two meanings:

לֹא־תֹאכַ֤ל עָלָיו֙ חָמֵ֔ץ שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִ֛ים תֹּֽאכַל־עָלָ֥יו מַצּ֖וֹת לֶ֣חֶם עֹ֑נִי כִּ֣י בְחִפָּז֗וֹן יָצָ֙אתָ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם לְמַ֣עַן תִּזְכֹּ֗ר אֶת־י֤וֹם צֵֽאתְךָ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם כֹּ֖ל יְמֵ֥י חַיֶּֽיךָ׃


You shall not eat anything leavened with it; for seven days thereafter you shall eat unleavened bread, bread of distress—for you departed from the land of Egypt hurriedly—so that you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt as long as you live.

Matzoh is לֶ֣חֶם עֹ֑נִי, lechem oni, the bread of affliction. The word עֹ֑נִי, oni,is usually translated poverty. Bread was a luxury that the poor, afflicted slaves of Egypt could not afford. TheIsraelite slaves were relegated to eating matzoh. We are reminded of the poverty to raise our sympathy for the poor around us, to remember that their choices are limited, their preferences disregarded. The opulence of the seder ( in most modern Jewish homes) reminds us that we rose out of that state of affliction, thank Gd. To a modern, it evokes the idea that the discontent of poverty and affliction are stimuli for revolution and acts of rebellion. (Passover shmurah [guarded from chametz] matzoh costs $45.00 per pound).

The other reason given for matzoh is that it reminds us that we hurried to leave Egypt:

כִּ֣י בְחִפָּז֗וֹן יָצָ֙אתָ֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם.

for you departed from the land of Egypt hurriedly


Matzoh is the rejection of delay. Leavened bread tastes good, but it takes time, and it is filled with emptiness. The exodus required quicker decision and less hot air. When the mission is critical, delay allows for renegotiation, dilution and a lower probability of success. Delay is a tool used by a patient enemy, it is one of the ways the wealthy and powerful manipulate the legal system.

These thoughts live in the world of ideas. The rejection of chametz ( leavened food) has meaning that emerges from merely thinking about what you are doing. It is rejecting (foreign) technology.

The use of yeast to generate carbon dioxide and alcohol is the beginning of industrial biochemistry. The Egyptians were the ancient masters of the microbial world. They made beer and bread by nurturing the microbes. They preserved the dead by killing the microbes.

Matzoh was a rejection of the Egyptian way. It was an act of Luddism, it was anti-technological. Leavened bread is better than matzoh. It is softer, tastier, more versatile, has more variations Leavened bread is a clear advance over matzoh. It is the fruit of Egyptian technology

Ultimately, fermentation technology was adopted by the Hebrews. We make (leavened) Challah for the Shabbath. We also celebrated its rejection. Eating matzoh is an assertion of membership. The weeklong abstinence from the leavened is like abstaining from using a phone on Shabbath.

New technology threatens religion. This is a theme that traces from the earliest bible stories to the present. Transgression, stimulated by the new information technology (the drug effect of the forbidden fruit) caused the expulsion from Eden and the need for agriculture. The tower of Babel ( the first example of interchangeable parts [the bricks]) constituted an attack on Heaven. Ezekial’s wheels within wheels may have been the newly introduced technology of gears. At the time of the Exodus, leavened bread was a new, new thing.

Traditional religions cling to the old ways. They are founded on reverence for ancestors and customs. The fruits of technology are the product of the new ways, hence they raise the question of the practical value of the tradition. In addition, the new technology often generates its own (competing?) traditions

Bread making converts the technology to tradition. For thousands of years the miracle of leavening was unexplained. A series of steps, followed in order, without deviation, led to an excellent ( and interchangeable) product. The froth that rises from the production of beer (called bram) was mixed with milled wheat , water and other optional ingredients (a source of food for the yeast) to produce a product that was much more flavorful and much either to eat, than matzoh. But the ingredients are not simply mixed. The bram must be maintained. If it was heated excessively, or exposed to copper, it would no longer work. The mixture of flour water and yeast had to be kneaded and then left alone and kept warm for a defined period of time, before it was baked. The process became ritualized ( and remains so). Most modern scientific endeavors are also ritualized. The process is kept constant, regardless of opinions about mechanisms, and any deviation is intentional and carefully documented. Industrial production is ritualized recipes with a veneer of understanding.

Technology has always been sneaky and seductive. Religion can be a protection; it can help question the value and consequences of the latest, greatest, new, new thing.

I eat bread, but not on Passover.