[Avodah] The night of Makas Bechoros

Zev Sero zev at sero.name
Thu May 17 00:30:27 PDT 2018


Further to your question, we've discussed the time of yetzias
mitzrayim before, and some have asserted that it was early in the
morning, but the Torah says "be'etzem hayom", and Rashi explicitly
says this means high noon.  At the time of the discussion I couldn't
find this Rashi, but it's in Devarim 32:48.   So not only did they
have all night to prepare food for the journey, they also had all
morning. And yet we're to believe they didn't get around to it until
just before noon.

However, leaving aside the improbability of this timing, my
understanding of the actual event is that they started making dough to
bake bread, and would have left it to rise but immediately they got
the announcement that they were leaving, so they shoved it straight
into the oven and baked it there and then, as matzos.

Alternatively, given that they had already been commanded not to bake
chametz, we can say that  because of this commandment they always
intended to bake it immediately, but as it happened the command became
irrelevant because the announcement came just as they finished
kneading it and were about to put it in the oven, so even had they
*not* been commanded they would still have had to bake it as matzos.
Which of course is why the commandment was given in the first place.

Either way, though, my understanding is that they did not leave with
unbaked dough but with dough that had been swiftly baked into matzos.
I am positing that one may still call dough "dough" after it has been
turned into bread, if one is speaking from the perspective of before
it was baked.


More information about the Avodah mailing list