The Needs of Hashem
This is for my sister Lev, who is having trouble understanding why we eat Matzah on Passover.
Before anything existed, there was just Hashem. It is written that Hashem is perfect, but that doesn't mean He has no needs. Being perfect doesn't mean needless. Hashem made us out of necessity.
Most people see the things we do, like praying, as more like begging. We ask for things, but the purpose of praying is different. We pray because that's what Hashem asks us to do. After all, He needs it. It's the same idea as calling a parent because they need it.
Passover
Why do we eat Matzah on Passover for eight nights rather than just the seders? Eating matzah isn't just a reminder of what happened to us but of how far we've come. It has been thousands of years, and now, in the comfort of our own homes, we eat matzah, which connects us with our ancestors in Egypt. It's not a history lesson. It's not a memorial. It connects to where we were, who we were, and the people we became.
When Hashem tells us to eat matzah, it's not a punishment. So many people focus on holidays as "this is how people brought us down," but we forget how we got back up. Their actions are our actions. Matzah isn't a sign of when we struggled; it's a sign of when we persevered. That was us leaving Egypt. We ate Challah in Egypt, not matzah. Eating matzah makes us one and the same as the Jews escaping Egypt.
We eat matzah because that's what Hashem asks us to do. He needs us, and even if you don't know why just yet, He does. The two most essential parts of a person's life are their birth and when they find out why they were born.
The Torah has this quote that interests me on the condition to eat matzah:
Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses... for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.
The last part is what's interesting. Why would someone get such a harsh punishment of being cut off from Israel (and therefore their faith) for something as simple as eating bread? Many people interpreted this as Hashem removing them from the afterlife or worse. I interpret this as something much better.
Not eating matzah cuts you off from the connection of Israel. The founding of the promised land and the people who brought you there. It's not an eternal, irredeemable punishment; it's a fact. It's a statement that when you don't acknowledge where we came from, you can't continue with where we're going. Not doing a mitzvah isn't a sin, but not doing this mitzvah is a loss. You're wasting the chance Hashem gave you to be connected with those who came before.
Repairing the World (תיקון עולם)
You serve Hashem, not him serve you. You don't need Hashem in the same way that He needs you. When you do mitzvahs, you are contributing to repairing the world. When you do a mitzvah, you become godly. You have a piece of Hashem with you. Whenever you do something good for someone, you do something good for Hashem and the entire world, even if you don't think it affects anyone else, like praying.
Every soul has to do the mitzvahs. That's what resurrection is for. It's not a command when Hashem asks you to do something for him. It's not a punishment. It's purely a contribution. You're contributing to healing His greatest creation, us, and the world we inhabit.
Many people can look at the year 6000 and think that it lines up with climate change or whatever you think our self-destruction is—the end or refresh of the world. But you're missing an essential part of that whole concept: that we have a chance to heal. Individuality in repairing. It may seem small, even inconvenient, but it adds up. So, the idea of the world being renewed isn't a negative. It's not our destruction; it's when heaven comes down to Earth.