The Custom:
The Alter Rebbe rules that one should avoid wetted matzah on Pesach out of the concern that the water would come into contact with some uncooked flour and become chametz. On the final day of Pesach, the Alter Rebbe says, “it is not detrimental to be lenient in this matter in order to enjoy the holiday.” This implies that the leniency is begrudgingly accepted. Yet the Chabad Rebbes had a pointed custom to deliberately dip their matzah into liquids on the final day of Pesach. What is the reason for this deliberate embrace of the leniency?
The Explanation:
Leavened products allude to an inflated ego. The ego is the impediment to spiritual growth. On Pesach, when the Jewish people were born and began the first steps of their spiritual journey to receive the Torah at Sinai, the ego had to be radically shunned. After refining their inner selves throughout the seven week journey, then the Jewish people could harness the ego’s ambition and assertiveness for positive ends. On Shavuos, therefore, we offer bread on the altar, alluding to the fact the ego can now be used in our Divine service.
On a smaller scale, the same holds true for wetted matzah. Wetted matzah is a hint of chametz, and therefore we shun it completely in the early stages of Pesach. After a week of spiritual work, of counting the Omer and refining the first, and primary, attribute of kindness, then we can permit ourselves to enjoy the echo of chametz, wetted matzah.
This also sheds light on an exegetical nuance: There is an obligation to eat matzah on the first night of Pesach, but not on the other six. The voluntary nature of matzah on those days is derived by the sages from the Torah’s description of the seventh day of Pesach, “just as eating matzah on the seventh day is optional, so is matzah on the previous days optional.” The reason why this is derived from the seventh day is because after a week dwelling on the divine revelation of the first day, the revelation begins to become assimilated within our consciousness and we no longer need to be “commanded” to eat the matzah, we have incorporated the imperative to imbibe the message of the matzah within ourselves.
Similarly, on the eighth day, after a week of counting the omer (which begins on the second night of Pesach) we are prepared to ingest the beginnings of ego into our divine service.
This is thematically connected to the last days of Pesach in general, which look forward to the Messianic Era, when evil itself will be transformed into good.
