Back in 1985-6, I was a student in Lubavitcher Yeshiva on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. I studied there for middle-school. In November 1985 I began wearing Tefillin in preparation for my January 1986 Bar-Mitzvah. In that school once you began to wear Tefillin you’d stay after school for an extra hour (once or twice a week, IIRC, but not sure how often it was) in a Beit Medrash room on the first floor of the building – to begin to study Chassidus.
Rabbi Yankel Schwei was the Chassidic teacher. He probably was middle age at the time, but to us he felt like an older man. (He passed away in 2020 at age 86). I heard that he was my parents shadchan (matchmaker) and later in life I heard the amazing story of his very strong mother Bunya Schwei and the difficult childhood of the Schwei siblings – all of whom became great Torah scholars. In his later years he became one of the rabbis of the Crown Heights Beit Din.
He taught us selected Maamorim (Chassidic discourses) from the Alter Rebbe’s Lekutei Torah. Maybe he taught us other Chassidic texts as well? But we were young, it was the end of a long school day, and I don’t remember much of it.
I do distinctly remember two things – and I remember the realization hitting me then how much these two things were related, how one illustrated the other.
FIRST ABOUT THE FUDGE COOKIES & PINT OF MILK RATIO
But a major preoccupation of ours had nothing to do with the Maamorim (or so I thought). Being that we were staying late they gave us a snack. Each time the snack was the same: Square Fudge Graham Cookies and a Pint of Shefa Milk. In those days cookies and milk was a traditional after-school snack. Not so much anymore…
We usually sat 4 to a table, (as I remember it) and the fudge graham cookies came in a plastic packaging with 4 rows of 5 cookies each. Each table got a package of 20 cookies, and each kid got one row. And we each got a pint of milk. (This is how I remember it, it may have been slightly different, but it doesn’t really matter. The message remains!).
Now those fudge graham squares were quite good with milk. (Especially when they were slightly chilled). And the milk alone without the cookie didn’t go down the same. So we got quite good at estimating the proper ratio of milk gulp to cookie bite, to ensure we weren’t left with cookies that had no milk left to down it down, nor milk without cookies to go along with. Getting this right took lots of practice – and mindfulness. We should have been focused on the Chassidic text, but getting this ratio right was a priority.
But then an unknown variable could strike! Suppose a classmate tablemate was missing one day – out sick, or had a dentist appointment. Now that same 4-row tray of cookies was split among fewer students, yet we still each got the same pint of milk! This was unexpected! This threw our formula off!
NOW ABOUT THE PASSOVER MAAMAR WE WERE STUDYING…
The Haggadah quotes a verse from Exodus that we eat Matzah because of the dough that baked on their backs. That’s the famous reason for Matzah that everyone knows.
But in this Maamar “Sheshes Yamim Tochal Matzos” the Alter Rebbe asks: Is that why we eat Matzah? Doesn’t the Torah, a little earlier in Exodus, tells us that the Jews were explicitly commanded to eat the Paschal Lamb with Matzah?
They had the recipe! They made it to eat with the Paschal Lamb! So is the Matzah planned or unplanned? Was it expected or unexpected? Was it the Matzah instructed to eat with the Paschal Lamb on the night before the Exodus, or the Matzah that baked on their back?
The Alter Rebbe explains that each piece of Matzah has two sides to it: There’s the planned and the unplanned, the expected and the unexpected, the Matzah within our control and the Matzah beyond our control, Matzah of our efforts and the Matzah born of divine revelation – our Matzah has both sides to it.
AHA, THAT’S THE COOKIE DILEMMA, TOO!
I remember loving the Alter Rebbe’s question. And as Rabbi Schwei read the text and explained the Alter Rebbe’s answer, I realized that the same thing was happening with the fudge cookie ratio… I remember that dawning on me.
There’s the fudge cookie-milk ration that we had figured out, we calculated, we practiced, we know the scoop and have it down pat. But then something pops up out of the blue, unexpected, unplanned for. It changes everything!
So there’s the Paschal Lamb Matzah which the Jews knew about, they planned for it, they baked it purposefully and mindfully. They had a recipe for it. But the Matzah of the Exodus was an entirely different Matzah! It transcended their prep and planning, went beyond anything they expected or imagined. It turned to Matzah thanks to dramatic Divine revelation.