How Volunteers Are Distributing Tons of Shmurah Matzah Around the United States

by Moshe New and Jacob Scheer – chabad.org

In the days and weeks before Passover, Jews around the country are rushing to clean their homes, prepare holiday meals, and run last minute errands. Yet Teri Karpe of Commack, N.Y., has a different item on her to-do list—overseeing the delivery of hand-made shmurah matzah to more than 1,200 homes in her community.

This is Teri’s third year managing, organizing, recruiting and assigning delivery routes to a group of around 50 local volunteers on behalf of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mid-Suffolk, where she has been dubbed the “Chief Matzah Officer.” Herself a recipient of shmurah matzah just a few years ago, Karpe was inspired to take action. “I knew I wanted to be a part of that,” she said. “And now I’m running the program.”

Last Thursday, she coordinated a late-night assembly line of 20 people from across three generations in the synagogue sanctuary.

“Everyone’s in a rush these days,” said Karpe, who was up past midnight assembling and packing boxes. “It’s small things that make you feel good. That you could spread joy and be part of a loving community.”

A Passover Awareness Campaign

Chabad of Mid-Suffolk’s delivery program is part of the Chabad-Lubavitch global Passover campaign, launched by the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, in 1954. The Rebbe declared that every Jew, wherever they are, should have round hand-made shmurah matzah for the seder. That year, the Rebbe sent a package with three matzahs to Knesset member and future President of Israel Zalman Shazar. In the accompanying letter, the Rebbe said that “it is our custom to send Shmurah Matzah to friends and relatives.”

Since then, Chabad emissaries, yeshivah students, and laypeople have delivered boxes of shmurah matzah to Jews around the world. The western Massachusetts shmurah matzah route started in 1954 by Springfield’s Rabbi Dovid Edelman, eventually grew to include thousands of names and addresses, and after Edelman’s passing in 2015 was continued by the next generation. And the scale and scope of organized matzah delivery programs continues to grow.

In Detroit, Mich., for instance, Chabad emissaries have spent the past several weeks preparing more than 170,000 packages of matzah for distribution, and have a goal of delivering 250,000 matzahs to enhance seders around the state. Chabad of Illinois imported over 5,000 pounds of hand-made shmurah matzah, and is sorted and stored in the Chabad’s warehouse space, and is then distributed by the more than 50 Chabad centers in Illinois.

Director of Chabad of Mid-Suffolk Rabbi Mendel Teldon shared that as a young man, he would ride along with his father Rabbi Tuvia Teldon -– regional director of Chabad-Lubavitch activities on Long Island and author of Your Unique Purpose— to deliver shmurah matzah to 70-100 houses in the area. Years later, after assuming the leadership at the Chabad center, he decided to expand the deliveries. He shared how Covid-19 was the catalyst that took the delivery program to the next level, when they started a “Judaism at home” program to make sure the community had what they needed. The program grew from there.

“There are 40-50 volunteers who deliver matzah to their zone, which can be a whole neighborhood or just a few blocks,” he said. “We now reach 1,200 homes locally. We ship matzah to community members who’ve moved to Florida or elsewhere, and provide matzah in bulk to old age homes and youth groups.”

‘Like an Emissary Themselves’

In Richmond, B.C., Canada, Rabbi Yechiel and Chanie Baitelman, working alongside their recently appointed emissaries Rabbi Menachem and Esther Miriam Wolf, also coordinate Shmurah Matzah deliveries with their team of volunteers. Beginning around 5 years ago, their program has blossomed to 1,200 Jewish homes, what they describe as a “near-total coverage of the local community.”

“There’s a certain excitement around this initiative in the community,” said Baitelman, a veteran emissary of 25 years. “For me, this is the ability to get dozens more people to become, at least for a short amount of time, like a shliach [emissary] themselves,”

Volunteers are assigned carefully mapped routes designed so that neighbors deliver to neighbors, often on foot. The operation, sponsored by Dr. Pauly and Sonia Young of Buffalo, N.Y., began modestly several years ago and has grown steadily through volunteer recruitment and community investment.

The initiative is now a community-led one, the rabbi collecting feedback through an innovative QR code on the holiday package. He uses the feedback to streamline the process and make improvements.

“Jews who previously didn’t know each other get a chance to meet and get to know one another in the neighborhood. It builds community and is part of the Rebbe’s ‘Ahavas Yisrael’ campaign.”

An Impact that Lasts a Lifetime

Rabbi Velvil Kahanov, associate director of Chabad of Northeast Florida, coordinates a team of local volunteers and yeshivah students from New York who will deliver matzah to over 700 houses in Jacksonville, a number which grows every year.

“The shmurah Matzah is both hand-baked and hand-delivered,” said Kahanov. “And it’s more than just the matzah—it’s also the personal visit that makes an impact.”

Adam Marmelstein is one of the hundreds of residents who receives pre-Passover visits from Chabad. His first visit was in 2021, when two “yeshivah bochurs” knocked on his door. He had interacted with Chabad as a student at Drew University in New Jersey, but this was his first encounter with Chabad in Jacksonville. He invited them inside to help him put on tefillin and say a l’chaim.

“I saw some young men with beards walking down my driveway, and thought ‘this is nice,’” he shared. “I’m usually never aware of the calendar, Jewish or secular, so it was nice to get a reminder – oh, Passover is here!”

When the volunteers came back the next year with matzah, it felt like a tradition was born. The annual visits are something he looks forward to, and sparked a greater involvement in Jewish life. Adam attended Shabbat dinner at Rabbi Velvil’s house, and soon began attending events and even hosted several Sunday Morning BLT (Bagels Lox & Torah) meetups in his backyard. Adam’s kids are also now familiar with the sight of yeshivah students ambling up their driveway.

“My kids ate the Matzah and read the back of the package. They learned about the selling of the Chametz,” Marmelstein told Chabad.org, noting how it reminded him of the way people used to read the back of the cereal box before cell phones.

“This Matzah had unexpected downstream effects of ancillary Jewish education.” he said. “I hope my kids will continue to lead Jewish lives.”

In Virginia’s Tidewater region, Chabad leads a delivery operation that now reaches more than 1,000 homes. The response is visceral. People who open the door to find a hand-baked matzah find they cannot refuse it—Jews, no matter the background, have a special connection to this “Bread of Faith.” “A local resident who had previously been very cool to his Jewish engagement sent me a note this year thanking us for the gift,” said Rabbi Levi Brashevitsky, assistant director of Chabad of Tidewater. “It’s a soul reaction.”

Back in Long Island, Karpe, Chabad of Mid-Suffolk’s “Chief Matzah Officer,” reflected on how the delivery program leaves a lasting impact on people. She remembers one delivery in particular: a woman whose husband had just come out of surgery, housebound while she cared for him. Volunteers from Chabad had already brought the family food for the Passover meal and then Karpe arrived later with the shmurah matzah. That’s when it hit her. “I thought ‘this is unbelievable: this is what it’s all about,” she told Chabad.org. “We’re taking care of each other.”