Slow Growing

So now I have a bunch of hardtack. I took it to work, along with some ANZAC biscuits for sharing. That wiki article I mentioned a while ago said that Alaskans really like the stuff warm with jam and butter. Well, I tried it warm and wasn't crazy about it, but jam and butter sounded good.

After a few bites, I was really getting into it. Before the day ended I had eaten two tiles of the stuff. Now I am definitely going to try making this again. Yum.

It was a beautiful day out, so I walked home from the bottom of the hill, thinking about hardtack, and how I could get it thinner and crispier. Suddenly, it hit me: matzah is hardtack. Bear with me...

As discussed previously, the story goes that it was baked on the backs of Egypt-fleeing Jews, and that hasn't been sitting well with me. Well, when you think about it as hardtack or cram (for the hobbits out there), it makes complete sense. It's not that the Jews had no time to bake their bread, it's that they baked bread KNOWING that they would be traveling for a long time. That explains why there's no salt and no leavening. The more I thought about it, the more it clicked.

Rabbinic Judaism, pretty much the only kind there is, is based on Jews relying on God to save them from everything. Most fables and stories have been re-engineered to remove human accomplishments and place the credit square on God. For example, Chanukah, an inspiring story of military triumph, has been reduced to God making a lamp stay lit for 8 days.

This helplessness without God really bugs me, but that's not just Judaism's problem. Still, it's nice to find yet another story I can lay to rest while enjoying deliciously difficult to eat baked things. I feel like I discovered the moon for getting this sorted out, when it probably should have occurred to me earlier. Ah, well.