THE SHAPE OF MATZOTH
In the twentieth chapter of Proverbs v. 17, we find the maxim:
"Bread gained by fraud is sweet to a man,
But afterwards his mouth will be filled with gravel."
The exact point of this comparison was brought home to me when I spent a night at Modin, the ancient home of the Maccabees. Over night I enjoyed the hospitality of a Bedouin. In the morning I was given some native bread for breakfast. I was very hungry, and I took a large and hasty bite at the bread, when lo! my mouth was full of gravel. They make the bread as follows: One person rolls the dough into a thin round cake (resembling a Matzah), while another person places hot cinders on the ground. The cake is put on the cinders and gravel, and an earthenware pot is spread over all, to retain the heat. Hence the bread comes out with fragments of gravel and cinder in it. Woe betide the hasty eater! Compare Lamentations iii. 16, "He hath broken my teeth with gravel stones." This, then, may be the meaning of the proverb cited at the head of this note. Bread hastily snatched, advantages thoughtlessly or fraudulently grasped, may appear sweet in anticipation, but eventually they fill a man's mouth with gravel.
The quotation from Paulus Aringhus' Roma subterranea novissima will be found in vol. ii, p. 533 of the first edition (Rome, 1651). This work, dealing mainly with the Christian sepulchres in Rome, was reprinted in Amsterdam (1659) and Arnheim (1671), and a German translation appeared in Arnheim in 1668. The first volume (pp. 390 et seq.) fully describes the Jewish tombs in Rome, and cites the Judeo-Greek inscriptions. There is much else to interest the Jewish student in these two stately and finely illustrated folios.
[Transcriber's Note: "Betwen" was corrected to "between" in chapters III and VII.]