ABSTRACT
The unleavened bread (the m atzah) is one of its best-known symbols of Passover. The Talmudic text recited on the first evening of the holiday, the H aggadah (which we shall shortly discuss), provides two different explanations for the com mandment to eat unleavened bread on Passover: we eat m atzah on Passover to remind us of the poor food that the slaves, our ancestors, ate in Egypt, and we eat the m atzah because it recalls the haste of the Exodus; the deliverance wrought by God was so sudden that there was not suffi cient time for the redeemed to prepare leavened bread for the journey to freedom. It seems to bother the Rabbis not a whit that a single signifier, the m atzah , might signify mutually con tradictory concepts: let s get the story straight; is m atzah slave food, or is m atzah redemption food? Or is it both together? Or do the Rabbis only want us to think about the paradox?
