It's Matzah season.
Contrary to popular supermarket opinion, where they stock Matzah year round alongside the Manischewitz gefilte fish, Matzah is actually Passover thing.
But how would they know the "behind the scenes" of these crunchy crackers? The dramatic tale of the long-awaited exodus. How after 10 plagues battering the Egyptians, Pharaoh finally caved to the demand of "Let my People go". In their haste to leave, the dough the Jews were preparing did not have time to rise, and instead baked in the heat of the desert sun. Hence, the tradition of Matzah at the Passover seder.
Hang on a second! So what? So they ended up with a defective dough 3,329 years ago... Perhaps we should dress up in the same outfits they wore? Why did we zero in on the Matzah as a "keeper"?
So let's dive into the deeper dimension of the holiday. Where Passover isn't simply a tradition, but a personal journey. Each of us finds ourselves in one form of Egypt or another, shackled and constrained, prevented from realizing our dreams and aspirations.
How do we break out? How do we experience our own exodus? The answer is right there in the Kosher aisle. Matzah. Unlike the puffed up Challah that we eat year round, the matzah is thin and flat. Sometimes the greatest obstacle to our success, the very thing holding us back, is too much self. The ego can blind our vision and distort our senses. How can we truly achieve, if we can't see further than the end of our nose?
Along comes the Matzah with a message of humility. This is the key to escape our own Egypt. This leaves room for G-d's blessings to enter into our lives. We can join together with each other to form a powerful Jewish nation. When we are selfless, we don't lose our identity. On the contrary, we can finally discover who we truly are.
"Self-help needed on Aisle 13" ;-)
ב"ה