Pictures Tell: A Passover Haggadah Ha Lachma Anya

Created in partnership with Josh Feinberg and Sara Wolkenfeld

Matzah oven, Bukhara, Uzbekistan ©Zion Ozeri

For Discussion:

• What do you notice about the way the woman is holding the matzah? What does her facial expression or body language reveal about her experience of making matzah?

• Does the matzah in this picture look like the matzah on your table? How is it similar or different?

• The Haggadah refers to matzah as the "bread of poverty." What do you think this means? Does anything in this image suggest that matzah represents poverty or oppression? What words or ideas do you associate with the matzah in this image?

Tell Your Own Story:

Take a picture with this question in mind: What does matzah represent for you? How does it make you feel, and what do you think about when you eat it? Take a photo and give it a caption. You can find a guide to your own photography here.

For Further Reflection:

• This photograph shows someone engaged in the hands-on experience of making matzah, not just eating it out of a box. The first experience of matzah as described in the Torah was not a careful, calm culinary experience, but rather one of hastily packing up food to go. You can read more about that here and here. How does the idea of rushing and not having time to bring something to fruition manifest in your experience of Passover? How do you experience this in your life more generally?

• Passover can be about making something new – like matzah or other traditional foods – or about setting aside old things, like bread. Read the beginning of this text, and consider: Which is more important to your experience of Passover – setting aside the old or creating something new? Why?

Tell Your Own Story:

• Take a picture with these questions in mind: What does matzah represent for you? How does it make you feel? What do you think about when you eat it? After you take your photo, give it a caption. You can find some helpful photography tips here.