The Secret of Matzah | Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

[music] >> When you bake bread, you mix the flour and the water together, you knead it, and then you set it aside. You may give it a punch or two to encourage it to rise, but essentially, your involvement ends at that point. And yet, the dough doesn't remain static. The dough, so to speak, takes over. It seems to change on its own. The natural yeast causes gases to form, it expands, it rises, it swells in all directions. Its texture becomes softer directions. Its texture becomes softer and more elastic. Air pockets develop internally. The surface begins to subtly stretch and lighten in color. All of this happens after you remove your hands from the dough. Matzah is the exact opposite. From the moment the dough is mixed, it's never left to rise, never left to develop on its own, so to speak. Bread, chametz, represents a world that seems to be self-raising, [music] where nature appears to operate by

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1. 0:00[music] >> When you bake bread, you mix the flour and the water together, you knead…
2. 0:30directions. Its texture becomes softer and more elastic. Air pockets develop internally. The surface begins to…
3. 1:00where nature appears to operate by itself. And matzah represents a world where nothing can happen…
4. 1:32autonomy in existence. Nothing unfolds by itself. Everything is continuously guarded by the will of Hashem.…
5. 2:03king constellation, has no independent force, Hashem commanded the Jewish people to take Aries, to take…
6. 2:34The constellations, the zodiac, do nothing by themselves. Nature does nothing by itself at all. The…
7. 3:04It testifies that every moment the divine dough maker is acting [music] alone.…

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