What did Egypt have to do with it anyway?

When Israel hastily left Egypt, they wrapped up their dough without adding a leavening agent. This was the precursor for the observance of the feast of unleavened bread or Hag HaMatzot which was defined at Sinai as a statute binding for all time for Israel. The Feast of Passover, as commanded in the Bible included a complete cleansing of leaven from the homes of the Israelites and a seven day diet of unleavened bread, this was given as a perpetual memorial of their escape from Egypt. But what, if anything did leavening have to do with Egypt and what is involved in it’s prohibition?

Some have said that the practice of leavening bread was part of the idolatrous practices of Egypt. That this bread was used in sacrifices to the Egyptian gods. This is something I once believed, and certainly is an aspect to consider—But if that was the bottom line reason for Israel’s command to observe the Feast of Passover, then why is there in the second biblical feast Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks), the command to make two loaves made with leavening? This makes no sense if leaven represents Egypt and idolatry. I mean, if the principle of leavening was evil, so now why were we to resume the practice? What can possibly be involved here?

Perhaps if we look at the way ancient breads were leavened we may see something in the ingredients that would give us a clue…

For several years now I have experimented with the process of making sourdough bread. As I understand it, this was always the way that bread was leavened before the invention of modern yeast.

For me, learning to ferment sourdough, has been interesting and a challenge! If you don’t have any bacteria, the flour base will rot, and you can’t put a tight lid on the jar while it ferments, you have to let the outside air which supplies oxygen and the environmental bacteria in this air. If that air has bad bacteria, it is contaminated—and when exposed to unhealthy bacteria, I have found that it produces a strange taste and smell. I have lived and made bread in parts of Israel where there is a clean desert atmosphere, and there the taste is excellent. But not all the areas in Israel create good sourdough, at least not from my experimentation.

Sourdough starter takes its flavor from fermentation caused by bacteria in its environment. I have lived in several countries and the taste of my sourdough has varied in each place. Since I make my starter from scratch and do not import it, it depends on local bacteria in the flour and the atmosphere to make it ferment. It seems that the atmosphere of the country is absorbed in the fermentation process. Now maybe I am taking a deep dive here—jumping to conclusions in that thinking. But let’s work through this!

What was wrong with Egypt for the people of Israel? Basically, they suffered under slavery in a system of idolatry, correct? There were other things, unclean, non kosher standards, perhaps also things having to do with Egyptian burial practices…

But what was right with Israel’s making their own leavened dough starting in the desert as commanded at Sinai in regards to the Feast of Weeks? Actually, the offering of the wave sheaf which precluded and thus was also mandatory for the feast of weeks, according to the Torah, was not to be kept until they entered the land. Leviticus 22:10-17.

But the instruction was given there so we would assume that it was legitimate for the Israelites to make bread sometime in the desert (though there was little if any grain to make flour from as far as I know). Was the desert a cleaner place? It definitely had less idolatry, except when Israel made the golden calf.

Do idolatrous practices pervade the atmosphere? Can disobedience cause alterations in the environment? What about immorality? Can it actually affect the physicality of the world? Can the physical world be destroyed by sin? I leave that to your judgment. Is it possible that the very air becomes contaminated with altered bacteria in an unclean or immoral environment?

We have been living in an apartment near Tel Aviv a city that celebrates its Pride Parade and leads the world in this sin. Sorry if that offends people, but being part of the land of Israel, Tel Aviv should honor the commands given by Him who gifted Israel to the people who keep His covenant. But can the air and the food be contaminated this way?

And what does that have to do with my sourdough? Well, I can’t seem to get the bread to come out right here. Perhaps this old decaying apartment is the cause, perhaps the air outside is too humid. But, the bread tastes wrong. It is not at all like the bread I made in the north of Israel. There is a strange strain of bacteria here which I cannot define other than to say that the very air is contaminated by something that tastes rotten.

Perhaps, like I said, I am taking a deep dive here into something that is half physical and half spiritual, but let me tell you, the atmosphere is not good here in many ways. It is almost as if a curse is hanging in the very air around us. And it is affecting the bread I make. I suppose I could import a sourdough starter and then I would not have the problem in my bread making, or would I?

When we think of the laws of the Torah, though many of them are a mystery, we see that observance of these laws brings both spiritual and physical blessings. We can restore the land! How? Not by saying extra prayers (Isaiah 1:15-17) in the synagogue or being sure to kiss more mezzuzot, but by obedience to the Torah and it’s simple commands, even though the spiritual meaning may be a mystery to the human mind. So what’s the bottom line?… Obedience is better than sacrifice.

1Sa 15: “22 But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry…”

As Always…Digging for Gems in the Mine of Truth

Ariella