Feast of Unleavened Bread מַצָּה-Matzah

“Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.” – Exodus 12:17-20

Immediately following on the heels of Pesach, another G-d-ordained feast is to be followed known as the Festival of Unleavened Bread or Matzah in Hebrew. It is generally explained that as the Israelites were preparing to depart from Egypt, they didn’t have time to wait for the bread they were making to rise and thus what resulted was unleavened bread. However, the above Scripture states clearly that the Israelites were instructed from the beginning to deliberately make bread without yeast. In fact, they were instructed to thoroughly purge their dwellings of all yeast and eat unleavened bread for seven days.

Well, there is a lot more to this than meets the eye. In the Bible, leaven symbolizes the sin in our life whereas unleavened bread represents truth, purity and faithfulness. After 400 years of slavery, the Israelites had to prepare to leave behind a life of bondage in Egypt. But it understandably wasn’t easy. Think about your own born again experience. After you decided to commit your life to Christ, were you able to instantly shed all of the bad habits and negative ways of thinking that characterized your past life? Of course not. Some habits die hard. It was the same with the Israelites. Even though they would be physically leaving Egypt, the Egypt inside of them would still remain to some degree. Some bad habits can be very addictive and we may even have to sever close relationships, maybe even with our own parents in order to follow the L-rd wholeheartedly.

So I can understand why G-d deemed it wise to establish this feast as a visible reminder of how G-d rescued Israel from bondage in Egypt. Likewise, we also, in the process of coming to G-d to be saved, must meticulously clean out and let go of anything that could potentially hinder our walk with G-d. That is why the Scripture is so adamant that “no yeast is to be found in your houses”.

Let me close with the words of the Apostle Paul:

“Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”-1 Corinthians 5:6-8

Amen