Baseballs, Basketballs and Matzah Balls

It’s hard to picture Passover without matzah, the perforated cracker that we hold up at the Seder to proclaim: “This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the Land of Egypt.”

But, as Jerry Seinfeld might say, what’s the deal with the other commandment, the Passover prohibition against eating anything leavened? While no explanation is ever offered, it is in some ways a more meaningful observance of the festival. After all, which is easier – to go to the store and buy a box (or one of those five-pound economy size mammoths) of matzah – or the days of intensive labor it takes to rid one’s home of all vestiges of leaven., scouring stove and refrigerator and cupboards to the point of exhaustion? Even just hearing about how your grandmother used to do it is enough to send you to your Lazy Boy!

That a festival commemorating liberation from slavery should entail so much might seem somewhat oxymoronic. (Or, if you ask my mother, just plain moronic!) But while matzah holds a special place in the Passover drama, the ridding of hametz (leaven), occupying us in the days preceding the holiday offers its own special message about the liberation that we celebrate on this festival.

To the Greek-educated Jewish philosopher Philo who lived in Egypt 2000 years ago, hametz was the embodiment of the sin of pride, because leavened bread is “puffed up.” Pharaoh, for example, was so taken with his own power that he stubbornly and arrogantly refused to release the Israelites from his grip, and it was only when he was brought down to size and humbled via the Ten Plagues that he relented.

We can all become puffed up with excesses of arrogance and self-importance, or readily angered by slights to our egos, baggage that weighs us down and holds us back. To remove the hametz is to rid ourselves of that baggage, reining in our pride, and keeping inflated egos in check. And all of us experience moments when we can elect either to hold on to the baggage, or let go.

After a disappointing 1999 season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, quarterback Trent Dilfer returned to Tampa for the following season’s Super Bowl as quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens. Many local fans expected him to show up with a major chip on his shoulder, considereing how he was practically driven out of town. In the days before the game he was being "dissed" on radio sports talk shows.