[Avodah] Ta'am of eating matzah

[Michael Makovi]

> My problem isn't that the explanation changes as we recover information
> about ancient Egyptian worship and cuisine. At least, not explanation
> qua explanation. But these mitzvos are symbolic; their transformative
> property inheres in their ability to get someone to internalize a message.
> And you're saying that message is something most Jews wouldn't and over
> history couldn't know. It's that the mitzvah is being explain in a way
> that it has no redeeming effect on the one who performs it except for
> the few who are in on these secrets.
>
> R' Micha

Your objection makes sense, truly.

BUT, if we find such things as that bread was peculiarly Egyptian, or
that pagans were prominently involved in meat and milk, etc., can it
be coincidence? That the meaning would be closed to most Jews of
history is a certainly a kashya, but it does not beat the fact that
the parallels are too obvious to be mere coincidence.

And can we deny that most Jews of history were oblivious to the
Gilgamesh flood story and the incredible contrast with our flood
story, as Dr. Marc Shapiro points out? (I.e. the world was destroyed
because man was too loud, Utnapishtim was saved because he was
"superlatively clever", the gods all competed with each other, and
they were literally starving because of lack of sacrifices and thus
they crowded around Utnapishtim's sacrifice.)

So too, many had no idea that that the law that whether an ox gores a
son or daughter the *owner* of the ox will be punished, was a
reference to the Babylonian concept of punishing the ox's owner's son
or daughter if said ox gores someone else's son or daughter.

And let's face it, the ENTIRE Torah has a backdrop of ancient Semitic
culture which we today are not familiar with. Every single instance in
the Torah of some minhag, whether ours or another nation's (who is
this "molech"?), presumes that the audience knows about this minhag.
Also Rav Hirsch points out that parallel to the Torah, we'd have an
oral tradition of stories of our ancestors. (I can't remember where
this is, however.)

I've also quoted Rav Hirsch from the introduction to Trumath Tzvi
(Judaica Press's abridged Hirsch Chumash) where he says we must study
Egyptian, Canaanite, Greek, and Roman history, in order to understand
Torah **morality** (as opposed to "ritual" mitzvot). Obviously, the
Torah couldn't give us Greco-Roman history, but why didn't the Torah
give us Egyptian and Canaanite history? It presumes we know it
already! And yet we don't know it today from our parents, and we must
instead turn to secular history books, according to Rav Hirsch! And
Rav Hirsch is the champion of symbolic meanings of our mitzvot, so if
he admits this (that we must study their history to understand our
mitzvot), kol vachomer we all must, at least to the same extent (viz.
in morality mizvot) that Rav Hirsch does (dayyo). (I am well aware
that Rav Hirsch was opposed to many taamei hamitzvot of Rambam,
relating our mitzvot to pagan practices. But Rav Hirsch apparently is
not opposed to relating our mitzvot to the **immoral** practices of
the Egyptians and Canaanites, even if he is opposed to relating our
mitzvot to the **ritual** practices.)

Why G-d spelled some things out, and left others for us to just stam
know or forget, is definitely a question. A very good one, I'll agree,
but it is a question that I do not believe negates the fact (IMHO)
that the Torah's mitzvot do often relate to ancient realities with
which we are today unfamiliar with.

But as I said, we must remember that ordinarily, the prodigious
Oriental memory and talent for oral transmission would have protected
all these details, but for our sins. So really, the question isn't on
G-d, but rather, it is on us.

Mikha'el Makovi