PASSOVER

I

nside one red-brick Oak Park home, everything is 
fairly typical except for one thing that catches every 
newcomer’s eye and causes them to inevitably ask, 
“What’s that doing there?”
“That” is several pieces of matzah and “there” is on 
the door header over the kitchen.
Meet Yaakov Gregg, 60, owner of Jacob’s Ladder 
Heating and Cooling, father and grandfather of a 
growing mishpachah. 
“Jews tend to find a source in scripture somewhere, 
apply it to our lives somehow and then use it as a seg-
ulah (protection),
” said Gregg, who has been putting 
a piece of shmurah (watched) matzah on top of his 
doorway for over 30 years now. “One theory behind 
this practice is that shmurah means ‘watched’ and we 
want the mitzvah of matzah to ‘watch out’ or protect us 
as well.
”
At the end of every Pesach seder, while eating the 
afikomen, Gregg, his wife, Carole, and their family get 
to work nibbling the matzah into round or fun shapes 
and then pick their favorite, the one that will grace the 
top of the doorway throughout the entire year. Then 
Gregg hoists the smallest child who’s still awake onto 
his shoulders and that kid has the honor of putting the 
matzah onto the door header.
“It’s a lot of fun for the kids; it all adds to the enjoy-
ment of the seder,
” Gregg said. 

Shmurah matzah: 
A protection and 
remedy for healing.

Matzah on 
the Doorpost

ROCHEL BURSTYN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

34 | APRIL 7 • 2022 

An Expensive Bread
Rabbi Chaim Moshe Bergstein, director of Chabad 
in Farmington Hills, together with his wife, Chaya 
Devorah, had never heard of this custom before, but 
he does know all about shmurah matzah. He’s been 
providing shmurah matzah for the Detroit Jewish com-
munity for over 40 years. 
This year Rabbi Bergstein sold (or gave away) almost 
500 pounds of shmurah matzah — 280 pounds from 
New York, 80 pounds from Israel and 120 pounds from, 
incredibly, Ukraine. The Ukrainian matzah was baked 
and shipped to America before the hostilities began. 
Rabbi Bergstein deals with a supplier and does not 
know the Ukrainian bakers personally or how they are 
faring in the war. 
“The Ukrainian bakers claim their method of making 
matzah is more traditional, whatever that means, but 
they have a good hechsher and I trust them,” Rabbi 
Bergstein said. “They wrap their matzah in a thin, color-
ful cellophane and package them in well-fitting boxes, 
which seems to stop them from breaking so easily. The 
Ukrainian matzah bakers definitely give more care to 
packaging than the American matzah bakers!”
The Ukrainian matzah became popular about 15 

years ago and, according to Rabbi Bergstein, always 
gets rave reviews. 
“The matzah from Ukraine is much thinner than 
usual, which makes it easier to chew … It doesn’t give 
our jaws such a major workout. It’s crispy and really 
delicious. People love it,” he said.
He sells regular Ukrainian matzah for $18/pound 
and whole wheat for $21/pound, significantly cheaper 
than the usual $30-40 price tag from Amazon or other 
locations. Still, a typical 5-pound box of machine-made 
kosher-for-Pesach matzah can cost under $10 … How 
to justify the expense? 
According to Rabbi Bergstein, there’s a mitzvah to 
watch the flour of the matzah from the beginning of 
the baking process to make sure that no water came in 
contact with it. For centuries, Jews have taken it further 
than that, and watched the flour even from the time of 
its milling. Shmurah matzah, however, is guarded from 
the time of harvesting — even though it is definitely 
kosher if it was just guarded from the time of baking. 
“The only time there is actually an obligation to eat 
matzah is at the seder,” Rabbi Bergstein said. “The 
matzahs for the seder have to be made ‘Lishmoh’ — for 
the sake of the mitzvah. It is clear from the codifiers 

Yaakov Gregg

