(Exodus 13:6) declares, "And on the seventh day, a festival to the Lord." The Hebrew word for festival, chag, is related to chagigah, the special festival offering brought at the Temple in Jerusalem. This linguistic connection raised a troubling legal question: does the obligation to eat matzah depend on the existence of the Temple?
The logic runs as follows. If the word chag ties the seventh day of Passover to the festival offering, then perhaps the entire set of Passover obligations — including eating matzah — only applies when the chagigah offering can be brought. And since the chagigah requires a functioning Temple, the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE would theoretically eliminate the matzah obligation as well.
The Mekhilta rejects this conclusion by pointing to the very next verse, (Exodus 13:7): "Matzoth shall be eaten the seven days." The unqualified statement — matzah shall be eaten, period — establishes the obligation independently of any sacrificial context. The matzah commandment stands on its own, with or without a Temple, with or without a chagigah.
This ruling carried enormous practical weight after the destruction of the Second Temple. While the Passover lamb and festival offering ceased, the eating of matzah continued uninterrupted. The Mekhilta's reading ensured that the most tangible, physical act of Passover — the flat bread of freedom — would survive the loss of the sacrificial system entirely.