1️⃣ What is Matzah?

🫓 Matzah is a special bread that we eat during Pesach.
It is made from only two ingredients:

🌾 wheat flour
💧 water

Unlike regular bread, the dough used for matzah has no yeast (no sourdough starter) and is not left to rise.
Instead, matzah stays flat, thin, and crisp.

2️⃣ Why Do We Eat Matzah?

The Torah commands us to eat matzah on the night of the Seder.
Matzah reminds us of two important moments in our history.

🏃 The Bread of Freedom

On the night of the Exodus, Pharaoh suddenly told the Jewish people to leave Egypt immediately.

⏳ There was no time to wait for bread to rise.

This reminds us that it was HaShem—not an army, a revolution, or another human event—who brought our freedom.

The people quickly prepared simple flat dough and baked it right away. Instead of bread, they left Egypt carrying matzah.

🫓 Their matzot traveled with them into the desert.

That is why the Torah commands us to eat matzah every year at the Seder—to remember the night we became free through HaShem.

🧱 The Bread of Slavery

“Lechem Oni” — לֶחֶם עֹנִי — Bread of Poverty

The Haggadah tells us that when the Jewish people were slaves in Egypt, they ate matzah all the time:

🍽 breakfast • 🍽 lunch • 🍽 dinner

For the Egyptian slave masters, matzah was the cheapest and simplest bread to feed the Jewish slaves.

It had:
❌ no yeast
❌ no salt
❌ no special ingredients

They gave it to the slaves because it was cheap to make, quick to prepare (no waiting for the dough to rise), and it kept their stomachs full for a long time.

Regular Egyptian bread was soft, fluffy, and rich, but the Jewish slaves received only simple flat bread — matzah.

That is why the Haggadah begins:

“Ha Lachma Anya — This is the bread of poverty that our ancestors ate in Egypt.”

🫓 When we eat matzah, we also remember our lives as slaves in Egypt.

Bread Comparison

🥖 Egyptian Bread
soft • fluffy • rich

🫓 Jewish Bread (Matzah)
flat • simple • crisp

🎭 A Beautiful Sephardic Custom

In many Sephardic Jewish communities, families act out the Exodus story during the Seder.

Children place matzah on their shoulders, like the Jews leaving Egypt.

Then the children are asked:

👨🏻 “Where are you coming from?”
👦🏽 מֵאֵיפֹה אַתָּה בָּא?
👧🏾 “From Egypt!” — מִמִּצְרַיִם!

👨🏼 “Where are you going?”
👦🏽 לְאָן אַתָּה הוֹלֵךְ?
👧🏾 “To Yerushalayim!” — לִירוּשָׁלַיִם!

👨🏿 “What are you carrying with you?”
👦🏽 מַה אַתָּה נוֹשֵׂא?
👧🏾 “Matzah and Maror!” — מַצָּה וּמָרוֹר!

This custom is inspired by the Torah’s description of the Exodus:

מִשְׁאֲרֹתָם צְרוּרוֹת בְּשִׂמְלֹתָם עַל־שִׁכְמָם
“They carried their dough wrapped in their clothes upon their shoulders.”
(Shemot 12:34)

This reenactment helps children imagine themselves leaving Egypt, just as our ancestors did.

3️⃣ How is Matzah Made?

🧑‍🍳 Making matzah must be done very quickly and carefully.

From the moment the flour touches the water until the matzah goes into the oven, no more than 18 minutes may pass.

Why?

Because after that time the dough may ferment and become chametz, which we cannot eat during Pesach.

The Process

🌾 flour + 💧 water
⬇
🥣 dough
⬇
📏 rolled very flat
⬇
🔘 holes are made
⬇
🔥 baked quickly in a hot oven
⬇
🫓 MATZAH

4️⃣ Types of Matzah

🫓 Regular Matzah

Regular matzah is supervised from the moment the flour is prepared until the matzah is baked.

🌾 grain → flour → dough → 🔥 oven → 🫓 matzah

Regular matzah is usually square and machine-made.

⭐ Matzah Shemurah

“Shemurah” means guarded or protected.

This matzah is supervised from an earlier stage—beginning when the wheat is harvested in the field.

🌾 field → grain → flour → dough → 🔥 oven → 🫓 matzah

Usually:

🫓 it is made by hand
🫓 it is usually round

Because of the extra care, Matzah Shemurah is more expensive.

Many families use Matzah Shemurah at the Seder, when eating matzah is a special mitzvah.

5️⃣ When Do We Eat Matzah?

🫓 On the night of the Seder, eating matzah is a mitzvah.

During the rest of Pesach:

❌ We do not eat Chametz.
🫓 We replace regular bread with matzah, which is why we say HaMotzi when we eat matzah during Pesach.

Even though it is not required to eat matzah every day of Pesach, matzah becomes our Pesach bread.