[Avodah] Ta'am of eating matzah

[Daniel Israel]

Michael Makovi wrote:
> We learn that we eat matzah because we didn't have time to bake
> chametz, and all our dough became matzah. But all the same, we were
> commanded to eat matzah before we left, and before we had any lack of
> time!
> ...
> I offered a third answer which the shiur-giver didn't recall seeing
> anywhere, but he thought it made sense:
> 
> G-d told us to eat only matzah, and so we baked only matzah. But had
> we tried to bake chametz (which, hypothetically, we did not try to do,
> but, hypothetically, had we tried to do...), we wouldn't have had
> time. In other words, G-d told us beforehand not to bake chametz,
> because He already knew we wouldn't have had time. In retrospect, for
> us, it made sense why He commanded us to bake only matzah: viz.,
> that's all we had time for, in retrospect! Therefore, the command was
> given with a certain ta'am already in G-d's Mind but NOT given to us,
> and LATER, the ta'am became apparent to even us.

I am bothered by this pshat because it seems to rely on the theoretical 
issue of what would have happened if we had violated the tzivoy.  Also, 
then the pasuk should say that our bread "wouldn't have had time time 
rise."  (I'm not sure how this subjunctive would come out in the Hebrew, 
but still.)  It seems odd that we would be commemorating a hypothetical. 
   Rather I think it was necessary that there be an actual historical 
event of dough not rising so that the mitzvah of matzah would be 
connected to an actual historical event that was revealed in the 
physical world.

I am struck by a different question, however, related to this issue.  We 
are told that Avraham baked matzos on Pesach.  In the above inyan we see 
that matzah is connected to leil seder.  So who set the calendar before 
the mitzvah was given in Parshas Bo?

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu