SOMETHING TO CHEW ON

But there’s another, equally important side to matzo. It’s also known as the bread of affliction, because it’s what the Jews ate not just when they fled slavery but also while they were shackled by it. “We used to eat that while we were in servitude, because it was slow to break down,” says Rabbi Mordy Kuessous of the Benaroya Sephardic Center at Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, New Jersey. In other words, matzo stays in the system longer than other foods. Anyone who has eaten matzo for the week of Passover knows what this is like.

This dichotomy of slavery versus freedom, the journey from one to the other—embodied in the matzo—is at the center of the Seder, which implores participants to discuss these themes and their complexities. “One walks away from the Passover story with two incredibly divergent ways of thinking,” says Rabbi Marc Katz of Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and the author of The Heart of Loneliness: How Jewish Wisdom Can Help You Cope and Find Comfort. On the one hand, Jews were slaves, so they must help others in need. On the other, Jews have been oppressed for generations, so they must take care of themselves. Says Katz: “Each of us needs to forge our own path between those two poles.”

As for Yagoda’s thoughts on the meaning of matzo, 34 years into churning out millions of boxes? “We go by ‘bread of affliction,’ ” he says.

Keeping track of time