Passover is a week away, and as we stock up on matzah and kiss goodbye to bagels, you’ve got to wonder: What’s the big deal about leavened bread, anyway? Why don't we eat it on Passover? Easy question, right? Because of the matzah we ate when God took us out of Egypt. But if you think about it, this prohibition is pretty strange. The commandment could just have been to eat matzah in commemoration of the Exodus. Why are we also commanded to remove any trace of leavening, of chametz? 

This week, Imu Shalev and Rivky Stern look at what Parshat Tzav says about chametz in its description of the daily offerings in the Tabernacle. All year round, the flour in the meal-offering has to be baked as matzah; it can never be chametz. The question is, why? Imu and Rivky dive into the Torah’s other clues to the deeper symbolic meaning of chametz, and those clues bring them to a new understanding of why Parshat Tzav forbids chametz with the offerings… and why we abstain from it on Passover.

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