Tikkun: Bread and Wine on Pesach
Isaiah Cox and Ze-ev Hall
iwcox@alumni.princeton.edu
Bread is the gold standard against which all
other chometz is measured. Bread is also the
food which requires the greatest amount of
human interaction – bread, like money, does
not grow on trees. Wheat must be sown on
plowed earth, it must be weeded, tended, and
then harvested. The grains must then be
separated and milled, the resulting flour aged.
Only then can water be added, and bread
baked.
Wine has a similar role for human intervention.
Grape vines are carefully grown and tended,
then crushed, separated, and wine is made. As
with bread, the active agent in wine is yeast,
allowed to work over time. But wine and bread
are given opposite treatment on Pesach – one is
welcomed and the other is banned. The reason
wine and bread are treated so differently on
Pesach has everything to do with what the
Torah tells us about the origins and first uses of
bread and wine. It all has to do with the human
role in the making of bread and wine1 and our
obligation to repair the consequences of early
actions. We have tikkun for both bread and
wine.
1
Bread and wine are both emblematic of Torah’s
role in the world. Torah represents delayed
gratification, moderation of explosive forces, the
making of beautiful things through controlled and
civilized human behaviour. Both wine and bread
take time and patience to make, the moderation and
control of the ingredients, such as the yeast, which
are prone to running out of control and ruining the
product. It is quintessentially human, not animal, to
dedicate our time and ingenuity to creating a
superior foodstuff – just as it is quintessentially
Jewish to dedicate our time and ingenuity to apply
the Torah to our lives.
© Isaiah Cox 2007 2 April 2007
There is a series of medrashim that tells us that,
counter to popular aphorism, bread did once
grow on trees. Medrash Rabbah quotes Rabbi
Nehemiah, who posited that the blessing made
over bread (‘Blessed are You ... who brings
forth bread from the earth,’) refers to the fact
that G-d brought bread forth from the earth in
the past.” And Rabbi Z’ira posits Eden was so
perfect that it contained “bread trees as large as
the cedars of Lebanon.”2 Bread was not meant
to be a collaborative product. It was given as a
finished product, like any other fruit.
Wheat, on the other hand, is identified by
Rabbi Yehudah as the forbidden fruit, the fruit
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
What can we make of a place where the bread
grows on trees, and wheat is a forbidden fruit?
It is a place without technology, without any
need for the laborious steps needed to go from
wheat to bread (tilling, sowing, reaping,
sorting, threshing, winnowing, grinding,
mixing, kneading, and baking). Who would
bother with all that if bread already grows on
trees? And what is the most destructive force in
any utopia? Man himself.
Adam could see wheat, and he could see bread
growing from a tree, and it was always meant
as a thought exercise: the wheat and bread
provided an example of what Adam could
2
"What kind of tree did Adam and Eve eat of?
Wheat, according to Rabbi Meir." He explained that
bread made of wheat symbolizes wisdom.. "R.
Samuel put the following question to R. Ze'era:
"How can you say it was a grain wheat?
"Nevertheless it was so," R. Ze'era replied. R.
Samuel argued: "But scripture speaks of a tree." R.
Ze'era replied, "In the garden of Eden stalks of
wheat were like trees, for they grew to the height of
cedars of Lebanon."
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discover and achieve if he applied his intellect.3
The Tree of Knowledge may even have been
meant to inspire Adam to greater intellectual
and spiritual achievement. The word “taam”
means taste and sensation. But taam also means
logic and reason. To acquire the true taam of
the wheat, the logic and process of how wheat
becomes bread, Adam was meant to derive
knowledge the hard way, by working his mind.
But Adam wants knowledge, and he wants it
the easy way. He wants to know how bread can
come from wheat, and by personal experience.
Certainly the first to provide support for the
adage, “be careful what you wish for, you just
may get it,” Adam short circuits the process,
satisfying his craving by eating the wheat off of
the tree. 4 Adam gets knowledge, the easy way.
And he gets bread the hard way. Adam wanted
bread, and he shall have it. No longer will it
grow on trees, there for the plucking. Hashem
tells him, “By the sweat of your brow shall you
eat bread.” No longer was Adam encouraged to
use his head to discern knowledge; from now
on, we are sweating from our heads from
physical exertion to earn bread.5 Be careful
what you wish for, indeed!
Pesach provides an opportunity for reparation,
tikkun, of Adam’s initial act. On Pesach we are
barred from eating chometz, which is
3
Wheat symbolizes wisdom: "a baby does not
know to call for its father and mother until it
experiences the taste of wheat." (Talmud Bavli
Brachos 40a)
4
An alternative is that the forbidden fruit was
actually bread itself. In which case, Adam is still
guilty of short-cutting the process, though in a
slightly different manner.
5
Midrash tell that wheat once grew as high as a
palm tree, but after the man sinned, it was punished
by having its height reduced. Our sages also
promise that in the days to come (Talmud Bavli
Ketubot 111b), wheat will return to its original
height. It will become "as the palm tree" and its
kernels will be like the "kidneys of the great bull".
© Isaiah Cox 2007 2 April 2007
understood as bread. But chometz is not,
according to Halacha, defined solely by its
appearance. It is not even defined by the
combination of flour, water and yeast. Chometz
is any mixture of flour and water that is left for
a minimum amount of time. Man makes flour
from grain, and he provides the mixing. But
this does not, in itself, make chometz. If man
never stops working the flour and water,
kneading it incessantly, it does not become
chometz. The clock only starts when man stops
kneading. In other words, Chometz is what
happens when man stands aside and lets nature
finish the job. G-d alone provides the crowing
distinction of bread: its chometz.
“By the sweat of your brow shall you eat
bread.” Nobody disputes that this is a curse.
But to those who seek to go above and beyond
the call of duty, it can also be read as a
commandment. When we try to serve G-d with
all our hearts and souls, we follow his
injunction to make bread without relying on G-
d’s part in making bread: the leavening. When
we make matzo, we are deliberately cutting G-
d out of the process, treating his instructions to
Adam as an encouragement to us. This
understanding allows us to answer two major
riddles within the Torah:
1: Why is chometz forbidden on Pesach? and
2: Why is chometz forbidden to be anywhere
near the altar in the Beis Hamikdosh at any
time?
The answers to both these are the same:
offerings to Hashem must be at the highest
possible level.6 When we make an offering to
G-d, it needs to come from us, not from
Hashem. And we should play our part in that
offering with the highest level of devotion, by
seeking to follow even the barest hints of
commandments. If we are zealous in following
6
The Thanksgiving Offering is bread, but it is not
brought to the altar; it is therefore not meant as a
gift to G-d, but is instead consumed by people.
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G-d's words, then we deny chometz on the
altar, the place of ultimate service to Hashem.7
And the connection to Pesach is even more
straightforward. Pesach is a new beginning,
commemorating the birth of the Jewish Nation.
Beginnings are important, and fragile. In any
new relationship it is critical to start out on the
right foot, to go the extra mile to show one’s
willingness to be accommodating. So Pesach is
the perfect time to repair the damage of
Adam’s decision, in the beginning of the
human relationship with Hashem, to ignore G-
d’s will, and eat the wheat. This time around,
we are not going to make the same mistake
Adam made by not listening to G-d. And if G-d
wants us to eat bread by the sweat of our brow,
then we will eat bread that we make only by the
sweat of our brow, and not by letting it rise.8
We will redefine bread, as eaten by G-d’s
people, to be bread that is made strictly
7
The same pasuk in Vayikra that bars chometz also
forbids the offering of fruit or fruit honey on the
mizbeach. After Adam’s expulsion from Gan Eden,
the very next communication between man and G-d
is with the offerings of Cain and Hevel – and Cain
offers fruit to Hashem. Hashem rejects Cain’s
offering, and it is hardly coincidental that we are
directly commanded in Vaykira to not offer fruits
on the Mizbeach. The absence of chometz and fruit
on the mizbeach directly recalls, and repairs, the
sins of Adam and Cain respectively.
8
We can add to this the idea expressed by
Menachem Leibtag that bread is the quintessential
Egyptian food (historians tell us that in addition to
Egypt being the largest producer of grain in the
ancient world, the Egyptians were the first to
consistently make bread, and also the first to make
ovens for baking bread), and so the commandment
to rid ourselves of chometz is a way of separating
ourselves as a nation from the dominant culture,
just as eating the paschal lamb was a profoundly
un-Egyptian act. Egypt was the breadbasket of the
ancient world, so in making ourselves G-d’s people
as distinct from all other nations, we reject bread.
See
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/bread.htm
© Isaiah Cox 2007 2 April 2007
according to Hashem’s edict. And so we eat
matzo.9
In keeping with Pesach being a time for new
beginnings that repair the damage caused by
the errors of our forefathers, the four cups of
wine we are commanded to drink on Pesach are
also an opportunity for tikkun.
Adam’s curse was the first time bread is
mentioned in the Torah. The first time wine is
mentioned was with Noach. There is an
extremely vivid and illuminating Medrash on
Noach’s use of wine which is central to
understanding wine’s role in our world:
When Noah took to planting, Satan
came and stood before him and said to
him: "What are you planting?" Said he:
"A vineyard." Said Satan to him: "What
is its nature?" Said he: "Its fruits are
sweet, whether moist or dry, and one
makes from them wine which brings joy
to the heart." Said Satan to Noah: "Do
you desire that we should plant it
together, you and I?" Said Noah: "Yes."
What did Satan do? He brought a lamb
and slaughtered it over the vine; then he
brought a lion, and slaughtered it over
it; then he brought a monkey, and
slaughtered it over it; then he brought a
swine, and slaughtered it over it; and he
watered the vine with their blood. Thus
he alluded to Noah: When a person
drinks one cup, he is like a lamb,
9
The Zohar tells us that Matzo is the bread of faith,
an act of self-transcendence. Unlike the popular
understanding that “faith” means that we should
follow G-d even when he gives us laws that make
no apparent sense, we could look at this another
way: matzo is the bread of faith because we only
make matzo in seeking to fulfill G-d’s decree to
Adam. This is an act of service to G-d, transcending
the self.
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 modest and meek. When he drinks two
cups, he becomes mighty as a lion and
begins to speak with pride, saying,
"Who compares with me!" As soon as
he drinks three or four cups he becomes
a monkey, dancing and frolicking and
profaning his mouth, and knowing not
what he does. When he becomes drunk,
he becomes a pig, dirtied by mud and
wallowing in filth.10
Without plumbing the depths of this midrash
(or indeed, of wine itself), several key things
need to be mentioned. First off, this midrash
speaks of the first time wine is mentioned in the
Torah, and makes the point that wine was not
initially meant to be a corrupting influence. G-d
did not make it that way, even though Noach
chose to act otherwise. And most importantly,
Satan (to be understood as Noach’s yetzer
horah) sacrificed four animals over the vine,
representing four cups of wine.11
On Pesach, we are commanded to drink at least
four cups of wine, as a tikkun for Noach’s four
cups. Instead of Noach’s private and
embarrassing drunkenness that leads to the
worst kinds of sins, we specifically and
meticulously drink our four cups of wine in the
presence of others, celebrating the deliverance
of the Jewish people from Egypt. Noach was
delivered from an apocalypse into a new world,
just as the Jewish people were delivered from
Egypt and born as a new nation. By treating
wine as a key component in the service of
Hashem we show that an intoxicating and
potent beverage can and should be used for an
entirely pure and elevating experience. Noach
deferred to his yetzer horah when he involved
alcohol, allowing the wine to lower him,
10
Midrash Tanchuma 58
11
Man has made something tumah – and in so
doing, created the link between tumah (which
represents a connection to death) and wine. Noach’s
act enabled wine to be used in the service of idols.
© Isaiah Cox 2007 2 April 2007
instead of the other way around. But on Pesach,
we do not shy away from the experience of
wine, and we do not act in any way like
monkeys or pigs; we act as G-d’s people
honouring their creator.
Noach used wine after the flood as a way to
escape from reality. His world had been
destroyed, countless lives lost. It is clear that
Noach is not ready to work constructively and
move forward. He used wine as a tool to try to
find joy in the fruit of the vine, to leave reality.
On Pesach we do something quite different.
Instead of using wine to escape reality, we
drink wine on Pesach to help us connect to, and
relive, the pivotal moments of our shared
history. Wine helps us experience, anew, the
events surrounding the Jewish exodus from
Egypt. Wine is used to make things more real,
not less.
The contrasts between wine and bread are of
course, well understood. But for our purposes,
a few of them stand out.
For starters, while chometz is banned on the
altar, wine is regularly used. One reason why
this may be so is that the altar is the nexus of
where man meets G-d. When we serve G-d on
his altar, we seek to do things the way G-d
intended. While chometz was originally not
meant to be a collaboration between man and
G-d (and so cannot be brought), wine was
always meant as a collaborative effort. Though
wine has frequently been a corrupting
influence, it has retained its power, when used
properly, to elevate the physical into the
spiritual realm. Any material with such potent
properties is inherently volatile, capable of
tremendous good as well as the basest evil.12
12
Liquids lack a shape of their own; they take on
the form of the vessel in which they are placed.
Wine can be easily shifted or manipulated, and
retains all of its potency.
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And so we have all of the specific halachas
dealing with keeping wine suitable for
sacramental purposes and for consumption by
Jews. Wine that has not been guarded properly
is as unwelcome on the mizbeach as chometz,
because wine which has been used improperly
is the wine corrupted by Satan. Indeed, of all
the festivals, only regarding Pesach are we told
it is meritorious to be particular, machmir, on
our wine. Why? Because only on Pesach are
we doing a tikkun for the corrupting acts of
Noach, only on Pesach can we correct Noach’s
error of inviting Satan to assist him.13
While chometz is only formed if man leaves
the dough alone for a certain amount of time,
wine also requires time without any human
interference. On Pesach, the matzo is made
with as little time for Hashem’s role as
possible, while the wine requires full
fermentation and G-d’s influence. The wine is a
necessary partnership with Hashem, a
collaborative effort that was intended since the
vine was created. As such, on Pesach it remains
a collaborative effort, with no diminution of G-
d’s role.
It is preferable not to have mevushal wine on
Pesach. Mevushal wine is, by definition, no
longer suitable of being used for idol worship.
It is therefore a poorer form of wine, inherently
lacking some of its spiritual power.14 If we are
drinking wine as a tikkun for Noach, it is best
to use wine that has the capability to be turned,
to be used for evil. Tikkun, like teshuvah is best
achieved by mastering temptation, not by
removing it in the first place. We drink the
same four cups as did Noach, but we resist the
temptation to invite Satan in (either to corrupt
13
And thus, we are barred from having non-Jews at
the Seder, and we are required to guard our wine
against any impurities.
14
Boiling wine is also the only way to kill the yeast
off entirely, rendering the wine inert and immune
from refermentation,
© Isaiah Cox 2007 2 April 2007
the drink or to corrupt our behavior) and we
instead conduct our seder with holiness and
gravitas and full of praise of Hashem.
This suggests another answer for why we cover
the bread when we make a bracha over yayin.
There is a common suggestion that the bread
will be “embarrassed” by the wine being
blessed before it, because according to halacha,
bread should come first. Embarrassment is
caused by failure. There is no shame in the
wine going first – unless by rights the bread
should come first. And here we have it: the
bread was created to be a pure food, made
solely by G-d. As a result of Adam’s act,
however, the wheat is debased – it goes from a
tree to a grass, and it changes from a non-
collaborative food to a collaborative one. It is
no longer made as G-d originally intended –
unlike the wine.15 So we cover the challah
when we make Kiddush, to be sensitive to the
failure of bread – and the reflected failure of
mankind that caused bread’s demotion in the
first place. Shabbos is not the time to dwell on
our own failings.
Bread and wine are the single most important
foods in Judaism. Yet on Pesach we are
forbidden from eating one, and commanded to
drink the other. On Pesach, the way we treat
bread and wine are a tikkun for the original
corruption of bread and wine by the first fathers
of the world: Adam and Noach. By re-enacting
the birthing events of mankind in a festival
marking the birthing events of the Jewish
People, but in an appropriate way, we
demonstrate that we are worthy of the Torah,
the reason the world was created.
15
Which is why wine trumps bread when it comes
to blessings, both before and after hamotzi.
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