In Search of Matzah: A Rainy Passover Eve in Vienna

Tal Gilad, an Israeli screenwriter and journalist, shared a powerful moment that unfolded on the eve of Passover, when he found himself wandering Vienna in search of shmurah matzah. How did it end, and why did he suddenly burst into tears?

“I already said that I’m not religious, right?” Gilad writes in his moving post. “On Passover eve, in the morning hours, I left Bratislava for Vienna to take care of a small errand. I used the time I had left for a short walk around the city. The weather was pleasant, and it felt like a good opportunity to see a few more places before tourist season began.”

As he was about to head back to the parking lot, his phone rang. “My daughter, who is religious, called to wish me a happy holiday and asked how I was spending it. I told her where I was staying, in Bratislava. She immediately realized that I didn’t have a Jewish community or a synagogue nearby.”

A Daughter’s Request

“So where will you get matzot?” she asked.

“I don’t have matzot,” I admitted. “I don’t like matzot. I try to observe as best I can, I really do my best, but I don’t like matzot. I don’t want matzot.”

“Please get matzah wherever you can,” my daughter said. “It’s important. Very important to eat matzah on Passover, even just one matzah if you can get it.”

I could hear the tremor in her voice. I understood how much this meant to her. In moments like that, I don’t argue. “Fine,” I promised, even though I had no idea whether I could actually keep that promise.

Friday Afternoon Abroad

“Friday, 3:30 p.m., abroad. What landed on me?” I thought. “What matzot, and where am I supposed to get matzot now?”

Vienna has kosher stores, but at that hour everything was already closed. Everything, except for one store that Google claimed was still open.

A European rain suddenly started, the kind that appears out of nowhere on a clear day. A cold wind followed. I stood near Vienna’s city park, looking for shelter, navigating my way through soaked streets back to the parking lot, and from there rushed toward the store.

Open? Of course not. Everything was closed.

I kept driving around the block and finally stopped, trying to figure out what to do. I felt myself getting annoyed at the absurdity of it all. Running around Vienna, in unfamiliar neighborhoods, searching for matzot. I had come for a completely different reason. This was never part of the plan.

Just then, two Haredi men passed nearby. I got out of the car and ran after them.

A Direction in the Rain

“Excuse me,” I asked, “do you know where I can get a matzah?”

They looked surprised. One answered in Yiddish, and the other translated. There was a Chabad House nearby, they said. I should try there.

They pointed me in the right direction. I hurried over, scanning the street for signs. I couldn’t find anything and thought I might have taken a wrong turn. I was about to give up and head back when I suddenly saw it: a sign that read “Chabad House.”

I walked in.

At the entrance stood two people. One worked there. The other was a Haredi man who had arrived with a rolling suitcase at that exact moment, apparently just seconds before me. It turned out he had flown in from Israel earlier that day.

Three Matzot

“Hello,” I asked, “is it possible to get a matzah here?”

“One matzah or three?” the Chabad representative asked.

I didn’t know what to answer. I muttered awkwardly, “I don’t know. Matzah.”

At that moment, a delivery van pulled up. “Yaakov!” the man at the door called. “Give him three matzot. Go with him, he’ll give you.”

The delivery man opened the packages in the van, searching. One contained only utensils. Another had meals in plastic containers. He kept opening boxes, even opening the van from the other side. I apologized for the trouble. There we all were, standing in the rain, trying to find a few matzot for a random secular Israeli who had appeared out of nowhere.

The Angel at the Door

Then the Haredi man who had arrived at the same moment I did spoke up. “I have some,” he said, pulling out a package of three shmurah matzot.

“But you probably need that,” I said, stunned.

“No,” he replied calmly. “I brought them in case someone needed them. And here you are.”

I was in shock. I didn’t know what to say, other than thank you, thank you, thank you, again and again. I asked his name. Ronen ben Olga.

“If you can,” I wrote, “please bless this tzaddik, the angel who crossed my path.”

He simply smiled and said, “Be careful with the matzot, so they don’t get wet in the rain.”

Three shmurah matzot.

I ran back to the car crying, without even knowing why.

Gratitude That Lingers

“Thank you to my wonderful daughter, who pushed me so hard to find matzah. Thank you to that man, the angel who was there at that exact moment. And thank you to Hashem, who in His way arranged and connected everything so that on the holiday evening I would have three shmurah matzot, even though I hadn’t planned on it and hadn’t thought about it.”