"This is the bread of affliction that our fathers ate in the land of Egypt, all who are hungry, let them come and eat. . . " (From the Haggadah)

For the past twenty years, Rabbi Yitzchok Tennenbaum, along with his partner, Rabbi Berl Dubrawsky, have been spending their summers and autumns visiting New Jersey, Connecticut and upstate New York farms in pursuit of high quality wheat, which they personally harvest, thresh and grind, for their Crown Heights factory. The pair watch over every aspect of the matzah production to ensure that the grains and then the flour not come in contact with water (Watching Over, Shmirah is the source for the colloquial name "Shmurah Matzah").

Come November, the hand-made matzah factory (staff of 12), goes into full production. Altogether, Chabad-affiliated bakeries produce more than four million matzahs a year, all of them by hand.

"By the time the first lights of Chanukah are being lit, we are already deep into baking matzah for Pesach," states Rabbi Tennebaum.

So on cold winter mornings, when "bread of affliction" might be the furthermost thing from the minds of most Jews, the ovens of this bakery are already being fired, and supervisors, masgichim, are already in position to guarantee that only a trifle passes from the moment the moistened dough is rolled into the coal burning hearths and the moment it is pulled out as kosher Passover matzahs. As Pesach approaches and the production pace is accelerating, many Jews come to Crown Heights to bake their own matzahs.

"Forty years ago the Lubavitch movement started to promote the awareness among Jews that hand-made matzah should be used at their seders," relates Rabbi Tennebaum. "Today the demand for these matzahs bakery has really caught fire - so to speak..."