FEAST OF UNLEAVEN BREAD (Chag HaMatzah)

This is the feast starting the day after Pesach (Passover). The Feast of Unleavened Bread, (Chag HaMatzah) in Hebrew is the 15th of the first month of the biblical calendar. That is in the spring, around March-April of the common calendar. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is to be observed for seven days. Leaven causes bread to raise, so it is not flat and hard but is light and airy. We start to learn how to observe Chag HaMatzah, Feast Of Unleavened Bread in the bible location of Leviticus twenty three.


Lev 23:6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month, (as Passover), is the Feast Of Unleavened Bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
Lev 23:7 In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
Lev 23:8 But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.

In this Feast Of Unleavened Bread or, Chag HaMatzah if you wish, we are commanded to remove all leavening from our borders of our property. Leavening agents are as follows
  • yeast                                                                                                                                
  • active dried yeast
  • baker's yeast
  • baking powder                                                                                                             
  • baking soda   (sodium bicarbonate)
  • ammonium carbonate   (baker's ammonium, baking ammonia, hartshorn)
  • ammonium bicarbonate
  • potassium carbonate
  • potassium bicarbonate
  • sour dough

There are also leavening in some dog and cat foods, toothpastes with baking soda. Beer and some wines and liquors and some medicines like Preparation H.

Some that may be mistaken for leavening but the yeast has been killed and has no leavening action:
  • Brewer's yeast  (saccharomyces cerevisiae) A nutrient supplement.
  • torula yeast
  • yeast extract
  • autolyzed yeast extract  (a flavor enhancer)
  • corn starch
  • egg whites
Soda pop is not made with bicarbonate of soda. It is made with water that is infused with cabon dioxide hence carbonated water. A non leavening process.
Egg whites and some puffed cereals are puffed up by injecting air not through a leavening process.

Not only are we not to eat bread made with leaven but, we are commanded to eat Matzah, (unleaved bread) everyday during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Chag HaMatzah. The children of Israel were commanded to bake their bread quickly without leavening and to be ready to leave Egypt in haste.

We hear about an unleavened bread, during the children of Israel's wondering after they left Egypt, that came down from heaven that YHWH sent as an unleavened bread. The people of Israel called it manna.

Exo 16:14 And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground.
Exo 16:15 And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.
We read in the Brit Chadasha (renewed covenant) That Y'shua said,
“I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”

Joh 6:48 I am that bread of life.
Joh 6:49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
Joh 6:50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
Joh 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Y'shua taught us that there is leaven in our lives that is not of the bread we eat, but is the things that make us leavened that cause us to be puffed up in our attitudes. Our pride and arrogant that we display. As the Pharisees and the Sadducees demonstrated and Y'shua pointed.

Mat 16:11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?
Mat 16:12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

1Co 5:6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
1Co 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Messiah our passover is sacrificed for us:
1Co 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

So we also do not want to add to the word of YHWH. Or conduct ourselves arrogantly or boast with great pride about ourselves, exalting ourselves while belittling others. Or try to cause others to live by OUR rules. Creating OUR own laws as the Rabbis where burdening the people with.


The scriptural quotes are from the King James version of the bible. It uses LORD for the name YHWH and Jesus for Y'shua.