Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Director of TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

Welcome back, everybody, to a short and sweet inspiration on Shlissel challah. Shlissel challah is the key challah. This Shabbos, Shabbos Parshat Shemini, is the first Shabbos after the great holiday of Passover. It's the first time that we're making challah. We're baking bread right after Pesach, where we were removed eight days from eating any bread, any leavened items.
So now we're going right back into our regular routine, but with a little bit of a change. So we know that there's a mitzvah of separating challah, a special mitzvah given us in the Torah when you're baking bread, to take a little part of the challah and we would give it to the Kohen. But today, because we don't have the service of the Temple, we get rid of that piece of the challah, and this mitzvah opens up channels of unbelievable blessing and many great things, including good livelihood.
So there is a custom in Jewish communities to bake Shlissel challah, which is Yiddish for key for the Shabbos after Passover. It's a known segula and a good omen for Parnassah, for livelihood, though there are other reasons for it. Some bake the challah with an actual key inside, so make sure it's a clean key. You can put it in silver foil and you put it in the dough and then you bake it with it.
Some make the challah in the shape of a key, and some put sesame seeds on top in a form, in a shape of a key. All of these customs are age-old customs, and one of the first early sources of about a thousand years ago, the Ohav Yisroel says about Shlissel challah that these customs of our fathers are most definitely Torah. It's not just some ladies in Flatbush decided to make some key challah, some Shlissel challah. No, no, no. These are customs that go back generations and generations.
So the second Mishnah in tractate Rosh Hashanah says that on Pesach we are judged on the grains on Parnassah, on livelihood. So you may ask, didn't we say in this class, in this very class, we said that on Rosh Hashanah we are judged on our livelihood. Why are you saying now from the Mishnah that we're judged on our grains, on our livelihood on Pesach? So our sages tell us that on Pesach it is determined how much grain there will be in
the coming year for the world, but on Rosh Hashanah it is decided how much grain each individual will receive. Others say that on Rosh Hashanah it is decided if one will live or die, suffer or not, or other such things, but on Pesach is when we are judged on the grains on our livelihood. Now there are other customs, like the Sephardic communities, they have something called the Mimunah, which is a party, a special party, right after the holiday of Passover.
And they do this party with grains and flowers and all of these, you know, flower, they do with all of these to, as a sign that they want Hashem to give them livelihood. And the Syrian and Turkish communities have a custom to put wheat kernels in all four corners of their homes on, right after Pesach, as a sign of prosperity for the coming year. The most popular interpretation is that the Jewish people ate manna until the second day of Passover, after entering into the land of Israel.
From then on, the people were responsible for their own livelihood. And to support themselves, they needed to do their own business. As such, a key is baked into the challah, which represents the manna, the challah represents the manna, as our wish that God open the gates of livelihood. Another explanation for the Shlissel challah is that the gates to heaven are open on Pesach and are closed after Pesach. The key represents our desire to unlock these gates and keep them open all year long.
There is also the explanation that the custom is based on the verse, open up my darling, in which the Midrash explains to mean, open your hearts in repentance as little as the eye of a needle, and I will open them fully. All we need to do is open up our hearts and we're using this key as a symbolism that we're opening up our heart in repentance to the Almighty. The key represents our desire for God to open our hearts.
Some further connect the key and the manna, both of which, as we have seen, represents livelihood with the fact that the manna began to fall from heaven on the month of Iyar, which is the next month that we're going into. And the Shabbos after Pesach is when we blessed the upcoming month of Iyar. So because it's the Shabbos, M'vorach Mitzvah Shabbos, that we bless for the next month, therefore we take this key to open up the blessing in the month of Iyar, because that's
when the manna began to fall. Finally, the matzah that we eat on Pesach is said to instill within us Yirat Shammayim. When we, we spoke about this before Pesach, every bite of matzah is instilling within us fear of heaven. It's bringing within us emunah, a consciousness of God. Yirat Shammayim is compared to a key. As the Talmud says, Rabbah Bar Avhunah said, Rabbah the son of Rav Hunah said, any person that has Torah but doesn't have Yirat Shammayim is comparable to a treasure who has the keys
to the inner treasury but not the outer one. What good is the key for the inner area if you can't even get there from the outer area? Based on this, we bake the shlissel challah, we bake the key challah after Pesach to show that we have both Torah and Yirat Shammayim. We have both keys, the keys of the outer gates and the keys of the inner gates. And Hashem should bless us all that not only we should be meritorious in fulfilling this
great custom of making our challah either in the shape of a key or having an actual key inside of, baked in our challah, but we should also be able to open up the gates of our hearts and connect to the Almighty and use this as an opportunity not only for blessing, not only to ask God for all of our wishes, but also to connect ourselves on the greatest level possible with our Creator. Amen.

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