[Avodah] Ta'am of eating matzah

[Daniel Israel]

Richard Wolpoe wrote:
>     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.
> 
> See The Beis Halevi on "Ba'avur Zeh"
> IIRC He essentially says the same thing, the mitzva was in anticipation 
> of the future history

I don't think the Bh"L fits particularly with the first part of this 
sevarah.  He is presumably going on the opinion that chometz was mutar 
that year, and we actually tried to bake bread.

-- 
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu