Note 65 — II. OUR DUTIES. (continued 3)

2. The Unleavened Bread.—“Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall have put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel” (Exod. xii. 15). “Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters” (ibid. xiii. 7). “Seven days shall there no leaven be found in your houses” (ibid. xii. 19). The distinction between leavened and unleavened only applies to bread or any other form of food prepared out of any of the following five kinds of grain: barley, wheat, rye, oats, and spelt. Bread or cake prepared from any of these five kinds is called unleavened bread, or ‏מצה‎, if the dough is baked immediately after it has been prepared, no time being left for fermentation.65 It is not only forbidden during the Festival to eat leavened bread, but it is not permitted to derive any benefit whatsoever from it.66 All leaven and leavened bread must be removed before Passover comes in; and in accordance with the traditional interpretation of the precept, “Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread” (ibid. xxiii. 18), the leaven must be removed before the time in which the Passover was offered.67