Model bakery puts holiday in spotlight

For most Jews, eating matzot during Passover is as simple as opening a box.

Matzot, or unleavened bread, is eaten during the holiday, which begins at sundown Wednesday, to symbolize how swiftly the ancient Hebrews were delivered from slavery in Egypt, which did not give the Jews time to let their bread rise.

Some Jews, however, will eat only shmura matzot, which in Hebrew means "to guard." The entire process of making this kind of matzot is carefully supervised from the moment the grain is harvested until the finished matzot are packaged.

The Lubavitch Chabad of Glenview demonstrated at a Model Matzot Bakery on Sunday how the shmura matzot are made.

"We don't want the dough to rise whatsoever," Rabbi Yitzchok Bergstein of Buffalo Grove instructed more than a dozen children in attendance.

The process of mixing flour and water, rolling out the dough, perforating it with holes and baking must be completed in less than 18 minutes to meet this requirement.