Hebrew Voices #185 – A Biblical Understanding of Passover Leaven (Chametz)
In this episode of Hebrew Voices #185 – A Biblical Understanding of Passover Leaven (Chametz), Nehemia does a deep-dive into what exactly is or isn’t prohibited during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He distinguishes the 3 Hebrew words all translated … Continue reading →
In this episode of Hebrew Voices #185 - A Biblical Understanding of Passover Leaven (Chametz), Nehemia does a deep-dive into what exactly is or isn’t prohibited during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He distinguishes the 3 Hebrew words all translated into English as “leaven”, describes how drastically different modern food production is from ancient times, and cuts through the controversy about alcohol.
I look forward to reading your comments!
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Hebrew Voices #185 – A Biblical Understanding of Passover Leaven (Chametz)
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If you read it in the English, you wouldn’t get that. You wouldn’t know there’s a difference between leaven, and leaven, and leaven, that they’re three different things, seor, chametz and machmetzet.
Shalom everyone, this is Nehemia, and I’m going to be talking today about the question of leaven. What is leaven? In Hebrew, chametz. There was a talk about a similar topic last week, and there might be a certain amount of overlap.
One of the things we have to do here is go right back to the Hebrew and throw out the English, because in Hebrew there are three different words that are all translated in English as “leaven”. And so, we have to get heavy into the Hebrew here to understand what’s going on.
The first word is chametz. Chametz quite simply is “leavened bread.” It’s the opposite of matzah or matzot. Matzot is the Hebrew for “unleavened bread”. The holiday we’re going to have next week is called in English “the Feast of Unleavened Bread.” In Hebrew that’s the Feast of Matzot. So, matzot is simply the Hebrew word for unleavened bread and the opposite of matzot is chametz.
The second word is machmetzet, which actually only appears in two verses, and it means “that which is leavened”. And there’s a subtle difference between leavened bread and that which is leavened. We’ll talk about that later on.
And the third word is seor. In Hebrew it’s Sin-Alef-Resh, and seor is also always translated in the English as “leaven” but it’s actually quite different from chametz. Chametz refers to leavened bread and seor is actually what we would call today, “yeast”. And more specifically, it’s what they called in the ancient times, or what we call today, “sourdough starter” or “sourdough”.
Today we have sourdough bread, and what exactly is sourdough bread? The way they made any bread in ancient times was, they would take a piece of bread from the previous day’s bread and then they would stick that into the new dough. And that’s called a sourdough, or a sourdough starter, that little piece they would take from the previous day’s bread.
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Comments
In reading a recent theory, the premise is that ‘Bitter Herbs’ is in the Exodus 12:8 and Numbers 9:11 text may be a misnomer, rather ‘herb’ is an add and should possibly be translated as ‘unleavened bread of bitterness’ as similar to Deut. 16:3. Thoughts? The word in Exodus seems to be very unique and I only see it being used three times. Lam. 3:15 only states bitterness, as the context would not indicate being filled with bitter herbs. Nehemia may have to address this one.
As for me,
To eliminate all ingredients that go into making leavened bread is a moot point inasmuch as we are not able to rid the air of natural yeast. We would have to eliminate room temperature, or slightly warmed water from our homes, as well. However, baker’s yeast has one express purpose, which is the leaven bread dough. Baking soda (still in the box) serves many purposes, as does honey, and are not getting thrown out this year at my house. Self rising flour will be tossed if not consumed before the required time, as will the sourdough starter.
I put my baking soda and baking powder in my leaven box that goes outside the house, because these are used specifically as leavening agents. Some people tell me that’s not necessary. Thoughts?
I think your flour and water will begin to collect yeast from the air as quickly as 18 minutes, even though it does not show. Self-rising flour-is only for quick breads, pancakes, muffins, banana bread and the like. Honey will ferment. I use chocolate masot to make s’mores
Really very helpful, trying to simply as surely Fathers Commands are not burdensome or too difficult to reach. Thank for taking time to share… also share far and wide to my friends!
Love your summation of perpetual Command, to Remember He is our Redeemer
To KNOW our redemption comes quickly
I also think it is the anniversary of marriage covenant with His people, that left Egypt and adjoined themselves to Him to trust Him in all things, protection, provision and belonging.
Always, thank you for sharing with others what you have learned.
Possible oversight… If you feed your dog leavened food, that would mean it is in your house, which is forbidden ??
I love this teaching with the Hebrew word understanding. Thank you Nehemia.
Are chemicals like baking soda and tartaric acid considered leaven?
Self rising flower has no yeast in it, but a combination of baking soda and tartaric acid. The chemical reaction causes the dough to rise.
I’m understanding more about about observing the Passover! And thanks for telling about wine, but we’re using Keren grape juice in the Karaite tradition. I do have a couple of questions, though, I make my own yogurt and kraut, which didn’t come up in your teaching. It’s not grains, so I’m keeping it.
If people would study these topics more instead of using their brains and energy on Magic role playing card games and video games, their brains would turn over! It’s painful for me tolerate these kinds of people! I have more important things in my head!
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