Bread in culture Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Christianity. During the Jewish festival of Passover, only unleavened bread is eaten, in commemoration of the flight from slavery in Egypt. The Israelites did not have enough time to allow their bread to rise, and so ate only unleavened bread matzo. In the Christian ritual of the Eucharist, bread is eaten as a sacrament either as a symbolic representation of the body of Christ or, as in the Catholic liturgy, as a real manifestation of the body of Christ. Specific aspects of the ritual itself, including the composition of the bread, vary from denomination to
Matzo on the first night of Passover. ("Shĕmura" wheat may be formed into either handmade or machine-made matzo, while non-"shĕmura" wheat is only used for machine-made matzo. It is possible to hand-bake matzo in "shĕmura" style from non-shmurah flour—this is a matter of style, it is not actually in any way "shĕmura"—but such matzo has rarely been produced since the introduction of machine-made matzo.) Haredi Judaism is scrupulous about the supervision of matzo and have the custom of baking their own or at least participating in some stage of the baking process. Rabbi Haim Halberstam of Sanz ruled that machine-made matzo