Shlissel Challah
There is a minhag to bake ‘Shlissel Challah’ (shlissel means key in Yiddish) for the Shabbos after Pesach. Shlissel Challos are best known as a segula for parnasa, though there are other reasons for it, as we shall soon see.
Some bake the challah with an actual key inside. Others make the challah in the shape of a key and some put sesame seeds on top in the form of a key. There are those who make the challah flat to look like matzos. We will discuss this later on.
The Ohev Yisrael says about Shlissel Challah that, “The minhagim of our fathers are most definitely Torah.” There are many reasons given for this minhag of baking Shlissel Challah; we will go through some of them. (Some of what is written below can also be found in Ta’amei Minhagim, Nitei Gavriel, Sefer Hatoda’a and Minhag Yisrael Torah).
The second mishna in Rosh HaShana says, that on Pesach we are judged on the grains, or in modern day terminology - parnasa. Rabbeinu Nissim asks that if we were already judged on Rosh HaShana as to how much sustenance we will allotted throughout the year, what are we being judged for on Pesach? He answers that on Pesach it is determined how much grain there will be in the coming year for the world, and on Rosh HaShana it is decided how much of that grain each individual receives.
The Meiri, however, says that on Rosh HaShana it is decided if one will live or die, suffer or not and other such things, but Pesach is when we are judged on the grains. Based on this, there are customs in Sephardic communities to do things on Motzai Pesach as a sign that we want Hashem to give us livelihood. The Moroccan minhag is to have a Seuda with Chometz called a ‘Mimuna”. The word Mimuna strongly resembles the word Mamona, the Aramaic term for money. In Aram Soba (Syria) and Turkey, they put wheat kernels in all four corners of the house on Motzai Pesach as a sign of prosperity for the coming year. (Moed L’Kol Chai - Rav Chaim Palagi, Bais HaBichira). From this mishna in Rosh HaShana we already see that there is a connection between Pesach and parnasa.
Reasons for Shlissel Challah
1) In Shir Hashirim (which we read on Pesach) it says, פִּ תְ חִ י לִ י אֲ חֹ תִ י רַ ﬠְ יָ תִ י - “Open for Me, My sister, My beloved". Chazal say that Hashem asks us to open up for Him a small hole - even just as small as the tip of a needle - and He will open up a huge opening for us. Also, Klal Yisrael is called a bride and a wife is also referred to as one’s bread. During Pesach, all the upper gates and minds are open and after Pesach they close and we need to reopen them.
For this reason, the Shabbos after Pesach, we put a key in the challah to hint that we must now open a small opening, through the mitzvah of Shabbos (and, if I might add, the mitzvah of challah), and in that merit, Hashem should open up the Heavens and shower on us all His goods from his vast storehouses. This coincides perfectly with the fact that on this Shabbos we bless the month of Iyar, since it was during this month that Hashem began to feed the Mon to our forefathers.
2) The Mon ceased falling after Pesach, that is when we bring the Omer offering. From then on, we needed to eat from the produce of the ground; we needed parnasa. Therefore, after Pesach, we daven to Hashem to open up the gates of parnasa and we have a minhag to put the form of a key on the challos to allude that Hashem should open up for us the gates of parnasa.
3) During the sefira, we count 49 days until Shavuos - the 50th day. This counting represents the 50 sha’arei bina, gates of understanding. We go from gate to gate, and each gate has a key. That is why we make an image of a key on the challah.
4) It says in Shir Hashirim (1:11), וֹתּרֵ י זָ הָ ב נַ ﬠֲשׂ ֶ ה לָּ ﬠִ ם נְ קֻ וֹדּת הַ כָּ סֶ ף - "We will make for you circlets of gold with spots of silver." When the Torah enumerates the materials needed for
