The Baking of Matzot and the Making of Mitzvot

Rav Shmelke of Nickolsburg was willing to give his life for the performance of any mitzvah. When it came to baking matzah for Pesach, he attended to his task with scrupulous care so that there would be no doubt that they were kosher for Pesach. Yet he was plagued by a terrible fear that he had not done everything perfectly.

Once his matzot were baked, Rav Shmelke would sort them out, rejecting one after another until he had selected the three best and finest matzot for his seder table. Though he prayed for the blessing of the Holy One he was filled with anxiety – had he somehow failed in his duty?

One Erev Pesach, he was returning from the bakery with his three prized matzot, his worries were revealed in his anxious face. A student of his came alongside him, his face suffused with joy. The tzadik knew that such happiness could only come from a mitzvah just performed, and asked his student what he had done to make him rejoice. “I am happy,” his student said, “that I have just baked these matzot in my hands for my seder table.”

The tzadik, envious of his student’s happiness, asked if he would be willing to exchange his matztot for those he himself had baked. The student was delighted to do so. The pupil rejoiced sevenfold at being privileged to eat matzot baked by the master, for these were certainly ten times more kasher than his own.

Why did the tzadik rejoice over his student’s matzot more than his own? “All the time I was baking my heart was troubled,” he explained. “I was beset by doubts. But these matzot have been baked by a man who is upright and he testifies of them being baked properly; in such ease there is no place for doubt.

From this we can derive the following lessons.

1. The Torah was not given to the angels in heaven but every Israelite is capable of completing the mitzvot properly. If the student’s matzot had been improper, then God would have prevented them coming into the hands of the tzadik.
2. The love of their fellow Israelites and their confidence in them is more important to the tzadikim than all the effort and energy they exert in learning Torah and practicing the mitzvoth.

Emmanuel Kitov, The Book of our Heritage