Torah thoughts
Every year, I use a different Chumash (Five Books of Moses) so I can get a different perspective on the week's Torah portion (2004: Richard Friedman's commentary, 2003: Plaut, 2002: Etz Chaim, 2001: Artscroll). This year I am using Samson Raphael Hirsch's work.

Hirsch has an interesting perspective on the prohibition of leavened products (chametz) during Passover (Exodus 13:7). I had always heard that chametz symbolized something bad: the egotism that we need to let go of during Passover. But Hirsch has a slightly different spin: unleavened bread (matzoh) is the bread of affliction, because slaves don't have time to sit around letting bread rise. Leavened bread symbolizes freedom and independence. So chametz symbolizes something good.

So why not eat chametz during Passover, the festival of Jewish freedom? To remind ourselves of the days when Jews were without freedom, and to remind ourselves that without the Creator of the idea of freedom (however one concieves that Creator), there is no freedom.