No bread. No rolls. No soy sauce. Nothing with leaven (chametz) and nothing that has even come into contact with chametz, for seven full days (eight if you’re Orthodox). Strange, isn’t it, that Pesach, the holiday of freedom, seems to place such an incredible number of restrictions on that freedom. This is most evident, of course, in the area of what we can and cannot eat.
   
Why the emphasis on food?  Because Pesach is, at its root, a food holiday.  Long before there were any Hebrews or any Jews at all, shepherds celebrated the new births that usually took place in the spring and farmers celebrated the appearance of the new crops at about the same time.

If the increases were plentiful, the food supply was insured. So the issue is not just one food as opposed to another. The issue is enough food to feed the community as opposed to not enough for everyone. This is not just a matter of choice, but literally a matter of life and death. And that is why, I suggest, our ancestors made not eating chametz such an important part of Pesach.
How so? There are a number of reasons:

1.    Stored food, especially grain and dairy products (the majority of our ancestors’ diets) is apt to ferment when it is stored too long. It spoils and produces variously colored molds. Some are benign, some can make us sick, and some can kill us. Even today, the layperson would be hard put to tell which is which.

Our ancestors were correct in insisting that if we wished to maintain the simplest of freedoms, simple survival, we had to, in our freedom, limit ourselves. We had to, then as now, pick from among possible outcomes, accepting some and restricting ourselves with regard to others.

2.    It is commonplace, even in the most primitive cultures, that leavening agents are used to cause bread to rise, to swell up. The only way to counter this is to punch the dough back down, or see to it that no leaven gets into the dough in the first place.

Even farmers are rarely completely self-sufficient. There are almost always important items that must be gotten from somewhere else. For our ancestors, the puffing up of the dough became a symbol for the denial of this truth. It became a symbol of the puffery, the arrogance, the self-aggrandizement of those who felt they could go it alone without any concern for their neighbors and community. By restricting our individual freedom vis-à-vis what we eat, we affirm our dependence on, and responsibility for, the rest of our community.

3.    There is usually something left over from last year’s “stuff.” These leftovers are where spoilage and fermentation are most apt to occur.

Cleaning out the leftovers became a symbol of trust in God. Why? Because holding onto the few last crumbs was also a way of holding onto yesterday, holding onto the past. Throughout our historical experience our people were told to put their trust in God and to go forward. For Abraham to leave his homeland, Jacob to flee the famine by migrating to Egypt, the Israelites to flee Egypt, make their way through the Sea of Reeds, and begin the conquest of Canaan courage, a letting go of the past and trust in God’s guidance were all needed.

At this holiday of the celebration of our freedom, we freely do what is possible only for us: we make choices. We make the best of our limits. We act like humans, not like God. Part of what we celebrate is our freedom to limit ourselves in the face of limitless choices. This is at the core of our humanity as well as our Judaism. A zissen Pesach to you all.