Dvar Torah given at Ramah Darom April 2026
Are you someone who has primary responsibility for packing in your household?
When did you start packing?
This question was prompted by a close reading of Exodus 12:39:
וַיֹּאפ֨וּ אֶת־הַבָּצֵ֜ק אֲשֶׁ֨ר הוֹצִ֧יאוּ מִמִּצְרַ֛יִם עֻגֹ֥ת מַצּ֖וֹת כִּ֣י לֹ֣א חָמֵ֑ץ כִּֽי־גֹרְשׁ֣וּ מִמִּצְרַ֗יִם
וְלֹ֤א יָֽכְלוּ֙ לְהִתְמַהְמֵ֔הַּ וְגַם־צֵדָ֖ה לֹא־עָשׂ֥וּ לָהֶֽם׃
And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had taken out of Egypt, for it was
not leavened, since they had been driven out of Egypt and could not delay;
nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.
Often times, this verse is cited as an explanation for why we eat matzah:
Because when our ancestors left Egypt the dough didn’t have time to rise… we read this every year at our seder. But this year, I was focused on the last clause in the verse:
וְגַם־צֵדָ֖ה לֹא־עָשׂ֥וּ לָהֶֽם׃
nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.
After 9 plagues they still weren’t ready to go?
They hadn’t packed anything?
Perhaps because I started preparing this d’var torah when I was at the stage of packing where I had started my mental checklist of things that I wanted to bring, this clause really stood out to me.
I understand that not everyone is inclined to be so organized, but there must have been some planners amongst b’nei yisrael. How did B’nai Yisrael get to this point in the story and not bring any provisions? Like I understand forgetting something off the list, like socks (as may have happened in our family recently), but bringing nothing?!
Fortunately this is a question that is addressed by a number of commentators. Let’s look at a few:
Rashi posits that this actually speaks favorably about the people of Israel. They didn’t say, how will we go out without provisions? Rather they had faith and they went. Trusting that it was going to be okay and God would provide for all their needs even if they had nothing with them is truly a demonstration of faith.
Relatedly, Rashbam notes that the lack of provisions is what led B’nai Yisrael to soon complain about the lack of bread and water. This seems like it could have been predicted (and planned for). So apparently the commendable faith that Rashi described only lasted as long as it took for the people to realize that they were hungry.
Bekhor Shor has another perspective. He writes: Even though Moshe had told them that they were leaving now, they didn’t think that they would be expelled from Egypt with haste, rather they thought that they would be given time to bake their loaves and to prepare their provisions.
This explanation is a bit more relatable. They weren’t packed because they thought they’d have more time to be ready. They miscalculated and presumed that there would be time for packing later. This speaks to the very human optimism that borders on avoidance. We’ll get to it later. There will be time.
Haemek Hadar has an even more logistical explanation. He explains that B’nai Yisrael thought that they were going to travel via the land of the Philistines and not through the desert. He notes that even so, they should have had provisions for a couple of days to tide them over until they got to a settlement, but they didn’t prepare anything. This was because they wanted the Egyptians to think that they were going to the desert temporarily but that they would return. In this reading, the lack of provisions is an intentional deceptive choice. Since Moses had been asking Pharoah to let the people go to the desert to pray, they couldn’t load up with all their Earthly possessions, otherwise it would have given away the ruse. The lack of possessions was really just part of a ploy to get their freedom.
Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz has another approach. He writes that “Although they knew about the Exodus in advance, the events unfolded at an unexpectedly rapid pace. Moreover, they had only a limited time to prepare both the paschal lamb and the unleavened bread they ate the night before. And due to these pressing circumstances, they also did not prepare the requisite provisions of a long journey for themselves.”
In this telling, B’nai Yisrael simply had too much to do and they ran out of time. Packing to relocate your family for a one way international trip is time consuming and given the slavery, the Passover sacrifice and everything else they had to do, it was getting provisions ready that fell by the wayside.
I found this whole section of the Torah particularly relatable. When we tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt, we think of it in this ritualized format where we recall the most significant parts of the story. We think of the Song of the Sea and the miracle of the manna. We don’t often think about the real life impact on what it would mean for a group of people to leave quickly. The things left or forgotten, the kid who needs her stuffy, or the parent who forgot the sunscreen.
So what can we take away from the detail that the people never packed before leaving Egypt? I’d like to think that it’s a validation of sorts for our own limitations. Sometimes we just run out of time. There’s too much to do, and packing falls by the wayside. Apparently we aren’t alone in that. Nor are we alone in the idea that we had less time to pack than we thought. Perhaps we only just realized that the TSA lines would be much longer than expected. Or, as may have happened once, Delta had a meltdown and we were driving to Ramah Darom instead. Perhaps, we align with Rashi’s explanation and have faith–in the ability of Walmart and Amazon to deliver anything we might need along the way.
We can also learn something significant about our approach to preparing for this journey that is getting ready for Passover. Oftentimes an inordinate proportion of our focus is on the preparation: the packing, the kashering, which supplement we’ll read at our seder. I believe this verse is a reminder that more than the preparation, it’s the experience of liberation that matters.
There’s something to be said for being, like our ancestors, minimalist about what we need to be ready for the moment of the Exodus. Each of the commentators give different explanations for why they didn’t have provisions which may, in fact, address those of us who may feel not as prepared as we might have been for this Passover. We might learn from Rashi’s reading: that we should have faith in our liberation even as we are not ready. Or, as per Haemek HaDavar’s interpretation, perhaps this year we aren’t ready to admit to ourselves or to others in our lives where we are headed this year. Or perhaps, as Rashbam surmised, we may have misestimated how much time we needed to prepare ourselves. Or perhaps stuff came up, and we just had too much to do, just as Rabbi Steinsaltz says happened to our ancestors.
Whatever the reason, we arrived at Pesah regardless of our level of preparation. We now have the most important challenge of the season: of focusing on this moment in Jewish time and what freedom means in our lives, in our world today.
I hope that as we celebrate the rest of Pesah, we can also be liberated from an inclination to over prepare for every contingency. May we be present in our moments of liberation.
As it was for B’nai Yisrael. May we too be blessed in this year by ending up with whatever provisions we need whether or not we spent enough time getting ready.
Shabbat Shalom.