Matzah Brei

It started when Michele Montague asked at our most recent staff meeting: what’s your favorite Passover food? Matzah brei quickly won the most votes.

Matzah brei is, at its most basic, matzah cooked with egg. Yet the variations on this are infinite - you either like it as a scramble or a frittata. Or fried crisp. Or more like french toast. The cooking methods are innumerable as well - do you rinse the matzah in water? How long? Soak it in eggs? Then there’s the toppings - do you take it with syrup or just some salt and pepper? Are you so bold to use sour cream?

The WCT staff discussed this all in healthy debate. As you can imagine, we came to no consensus. After all, matzah brei has been around since the 1800’s, probably earlier, and there’s still no definitive recipe.

A few days later, Sarah Goldstein, our communications associate, said, “Hey, you know our matzah brei conversation? Well, there’s a really fascinating one going on in the NYTimes Cooking section online.” She forwarded me a link to the NYTimes recipe for “Classic Matzah Brei.” Penned by Melissa Clark, it was posted about 7 years ago. It has since accumulated 332 comments, the most recent one going up just a day ago. Just like traditional Jewish texts, this multivocal discussion transcends time and space and reflects on how ancient tradition meets modern human practice.

The 332 comments were generally nice, except for a few outliers who rather pout, more than collaborate. Those killjoys claimed the author wasn’t Jewish (she is) and that she was ruining something they were expert in. Forget those trolls. They pale in comparison to the beautiful snapshots of nostalgia and love that followed…

Not to mention the evidence of how our modern traditions morph as our community changes and evolves…

It was a pleasure to see some Jewish humor creep in…

And then to realize that others had the same heart-warming response I had…

This comment, simple and succinct really hit home for me…

This one in particular sums it all up for me. So many of the comments started with, “I make it the way my father made it,” “My grandmother always started by doing this,” “my mother would do that.” Or, “growing up I remember,” “our family tradition is to,” and so on. 

It’s obvious but I’ll say it…it’s not really about the matzah brei, but the story that goes with it. Every single one of us has a food like this - whether it's a Passover food, or any holiday food (Jewish or not). Passover is particularly visceral because it deals in nostalgic food even more than the other holidays.

On Passover, the food is the experience. The saltwater is the tears, the wine drops are our plague remorse. The matzah, most notably, is the bread of affliction, and all who are hungry should come eat it! How powerful is that? It is the most modest bread one can consume and we nonetheless share it with all who need sustenance. The matzah is our conscience and we are hungry - hungry for redemption, hungry for justice.

And not only do we share our matzah with those who are hungry here and now, but we notably offer the matzah to the next generation. We are instilling our hunger in the next generation - a hunger that will only be satiated when all have enough to eat and when the last oppressed person is liberated. We inundate the seder with questions in order to engender curiosity.

The children will even go hunt for the afikoman, the hidden matzah. We play the game in order to encourage a lifelong, spirited hunt for redemption. Our parents searched for it, our grandparents searched, and their grandparents searched. So we, the Jewish community of today will search and the children of our community will search too.

All who are hungry, come and eat…the key is to always stay a little hungry. Hungry, but never hangry. Angry comments, or comments that create distance, or comments that cut down creativity, will never get us where we want to go. Only by adding productively to the ancient conversation do we draw closer to a more just tomorrow. That’s the Wicked child’s sin - what does this whole thing mean to you? You…and not us…he has taken himself out of the hunt, and therefore brings us no closer to redemption.

This Passover, this season of redemption, no matter our feelings on matzah brei, or the other polarizing nostalgic foods (here’s looking at you, gefilte fish) may we find unity in our commitment to carrying the story, to reinventing it for the future. May we continue to seek liberation for ourselves and others, praying that next year we may all find ourselves in a place of peace and wellbeing. Amen.