Afikoman

For children, it is the highlight of the Passover Seder.

Over the years they discovered that because the seder could not be concluded until this final piece of matzah is eaten, they could “steal” it in order to coerce their exhausted parents, desperate for sleep, into granting them whatever ridiculous demands they should choose to impose, hence the American idea of “Afikoman presents.” For adults, it just seems like an ingenious trick to give kids an authorized “recess,” a chance to run around and have fun while at the same time keeping them involved in what is happening at the table.

What is the Afikoman?

One of the first things we do at the Passover seder, following Kiddush and Karpas, is “Yachatz” which is the breaking of the matzah. Typically a matzah will break into two incongruent pieces. The larger piece, the Afikoman, which literally means “desert,” is stowed away, to be saved for later, and the smaller piece is set in front of us. It is on this smaller piece, that we now recite the entire Haggadah. Many of the most crucial and integral parts of the seder experience are prefaced with the instruction: “Uncover the broken matzah” or “raise up the broken matzah.”

This matzah, precisely because it is small and broken, aptly represents our “bread of affliction,” and “the food of poverty.” It is the quintessential matzah, and it plays a leading role throughout the seder drama. If the seder were a play, this would be one of the main actors. Finally, after concluding the recitation of the entire Haggadah, it is the first thing eaten, and with it we fulfill our biblical obligation of eating matzah.&nbsp;

The larger piece, meanwhile, is hidden away, sidelined and absent; it must wait patiently until its return much later into the night. Only after reciting the Haggadah, after eating matzah, maror, korech, the egg, and after the entire holiday meal do we remember it and retrieve it from its hiding place, and this becomes our “dessert.” Preferably, it is the last thing to be eaten that night so that we sleep with the taste of matzah lingering in our mouths and in our memories.

Although seemingly relegated to a secondary part in the play, and cast into some sort of supporting role, the Afikoman is just as integral, crucial, and necessary to the seder experience as its “younger brother.” Our Sages tell us, “ain maftirin ad acharei hapesach afikoman,” meaning “The seder cannot be concluded without the Afikoman.” It also replaces and represents what was the biblical highlight of the seder, the Pascal sacrifice.

A Tale of Two Matzos

The Passover story—enslavement followed by liberty—is the eternal story of the Jew. “For not only once did they stand up against us to destroy us, rather in every generation they attempt this again. And only G-d saves us from their hands,” we state in the Haggadah.

It is fascinating to observe the prestigious place the seder held and continues to hold in the lives of so many Jews. More Jews conduct some form of Passover Seder than attend even High Holiday services. The seder strikes a chord deep within us. Many of our warmest and fondest childhood memories were created at our parent’s seder table. Somehow the Jew feels that he or she cannot ignore the seder story; it is our personal story as individuals and as a people.

Now we can understand the deeper symbolism behind the breaking and separation of the matzah. Perhaps the matzah represents the Jewish people, the Congregation of Israel, who throughout history have continuously been crushed, flattened and humbled (like matzah), and have been given to eat the “bread of poverty,” the “bread of affliction.” Time and time again we were not allowed to wait until our dough rose, we had to take the wandering stick and leave with nothing but “matzah,” literally and figuratively.

The Division

But for a long time now, our matzah has been divided; we are a divided people. One part of our people, the smaller part of our matzah to be sure, still stubbornly sits at the “seder table,” they sit around the table of their ancestors, following the traditions, continuing the rituals, studying the laws and telling the story. This is the smaller part of the matzah, the minority of our people, which refuses to get up of from the Passover table and find other alternatives for life and for happiness. Yes, they sometimes sit there with closed eyes, half asleep, but they are present. These are the Jews who wake up each morning remembering that we are part of a long narrative—beginning with Abraham, culminating with Moshiach—and we ought to live our lives inspired by this narrative. They don a tallis, wrap tefilin, go to the synagogue, pray to G-d, and send their children to Jewish schools to receive an intense Torah education. These are the Jews who celebrate Shabbos, eat kosher, would not eat a meal outside of a Sukkah, or wear a garment made of wool and linen.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The larger part of the matzah—the majority of our people—have wandered from the seder table, into foreign pastures. They have found alternatives to Torah. Indeed, most of our nation remains ignorant and in many ways apathetic to our heritage and its wisdom, millions of our brethren people feel alienated from our people and its story.

And we can identify the moment in history when the matzah was “split.”

Around 250 years ago, with the French Revolution, and what was known as the age of “Enlightenment,” or “The Age of Reason,” the shtetl walls crumbled and many, indeed the majority, of Jews have ultimately said goodbye to their ancient ideology in lieu of the leading ideologies of the day. Voltaire replaced Moses; Rousseau replaced Rashi. Kant and Nietzsche supplanted Abaye and Rava. In France and Germany, enlightenment led to alienation of hundreds of thousands of Jews from tradition. Some decades later, in Eastern Europe, millions of Jews bid farewell to the Torah for a host of new “isms” that seemed far more promising than ancient Juda-ism.

Secular Zionistic nationalism, for example, captured the imagination of countless young Jews, substituting a transcendent G-d with a concerete homeland. In Russia, Jews flocked to found and support Marxism, communism and socialism. In America, over one million Jews assimilated between 1840 and 1930 alone. In the last few decades in the USA, we lost another million of our children.

And the split of the matzah continues. We continue to be a divided people. The small part of the matzah often looks with disdain at the larger piece of the matzah: “I am at the seder table; you are lost and estranged;” while the big part of the matzah often looks at the small piece of matzah with bewilderment and pity, wondering how it manages to remain so isolated and detached from modernity and the new world.

Here we will discover the secret of the Afikoman. Open your hearts…

The Calling of Our Generation

Next Tuesday marks the 117th birthday of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn (1902-1994) of blessed memory, who was born on the 11th of Nissan, April 18, in 1902, in the Ukraine, just days before Passover. Growing up at the height of the revolutions which swept the world and captured the hearts and souls of millions of Jews, the Lubavitcher Rebbe observed first hand the “matzah” being split, fragmented, broken, and then almost completely consumed by the flames of Stalinism and Nazism.

Providence had the soul of the Lubavitcher Rebbe grace our world a few days before the seder, perhaps because his life’s message captured the great story of the afikoman.

What was the Rebbe’s message for a broken and fragmented generation?

That the larger part of the matzah may be absent from our seder table, but it is our Afikoman; that our matzah may be divided, but we are still one matzah. Millions of Jews may be absent from the seder table, but they may never be forgotten. Most importantly: we cannot conclude our seder if we do not bring back the larger piece of matzah which has been gone from the seder table.

The small piece of matzah will never be capable of reaching the culmination its seder if it will not reach out to its brother-matzah and bring it back to the seder table, recognizing the truth that we are one people and each of us has a place of dignity at the eternal table of Jewish history and consciousness.

This, the Lubavitcher Rebbe believed, was the mission of our time. The seder is almost complete, the story is almost finished. Moshiach is at our doorstep. The meal has been eaten, and we have had our share of maror, of bitter herbs and suffering. And now we must remember the Afikoman. We must search for the afikoman, and with much love and sensitivity bring it back to the table, and let it reunite with its own essence, with its own story, with its own soul.

At times the Afikoman is hard to locate, the assimilated Jew is difficult to identify. Sometimes he struggles to even identify himself. But at the end of the night, at the end of this exile, he will return, to listen to the story of the Exodus, to take part in the mitzvah and pass it along to his own children. For no Jew will be left behind.

Only then will we be able to conclude our journey and truly be “Next year in Jerusalem.”

(My thanks to Rabbi Zalman Schmukler (Los Angeles) for sharing the nucleus of the above idea, and to Rabbi Avi Shlomo for his assistance in transcribing this essay.) 
 
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Healing a Divided People - The Secret of the Afikoman

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When the Rebbe Asked Me for $100 Million - And then He Began Quoting Zorba the Greek

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The Mutiny

<div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 13pt; text-align: justify;">The narrative is dramatic, tragic, and unmistakably Jewish. Four individuals -- Korach, Dathan, Abiram, and On son of Peles -- lead a mass mutiny against Moses, the leader of the Jewish people, and his brother Aaron, the High Priest.&nbsp; 
 
"They gathered together against Moses and against Aaron," the portion of Korach records (1), "and said to them, 'It is too much for you! The entire community is holy, and G-d dwells among them, why do you exalt yourselves over the congregation of G-d?" 
 
Moses responds to Korach in brief and moving words. He attempts to persuade Korach, who happens to be his first cousin, that Aaron was appointed to his position by the instructions of G-d. Nepotism was not a factor. 
 
"Then Moses sent word to summon Dathan and Abiram," the Torah&nbsp;records (1). "But they said, 'We won't come! Is it not enough that you [Moses] brought us out of [Egypt], a land flowing with milk and honey, just to kill us in the desert?! What right do you have to set yourselves above us? Even if you would gouge out our eyes, we shall not come!'" 
 
These are bold and vicious words. Clearly, Dathan and Abiram won't surrender. They are determined, together with Korach, to overthrow Moses and Aaron. 
 
As usual in the wilderness, G-d intervenes. He decides to wipe out the rebels who are attempting to invalidate Moses as the leader of the Jewish people and the communicator of G-d's law. G-d instructs Moses to announce to the entire community, "Withdraw from the pavilion of Korach, Dathan, and Abiram." A tragic fate awaits them. 
 
But before Moses moves to execute G-d's instruction, the Torah&nbsp;inserts an unexpected scene in the narrative: 
 
"Moses stood up and went over to Dathan and Abiram." 
 
Why? Didn't G-d instruct him to ensure that everybody withdraws from their dwellings? What exactly did Moses do when he approached them? It seems as if Moses himself is disobeying what he was told to do! 
 
The text&nbsp;leaves the answer to our imagination, but the message is clear. Moses was attempting, one last time, to persuade Dathan and Abiram to terminate their crusade. He made one last attempt to save their lives. It was to no avail. They would not be moved. 
 
The Talmud, commenting on this scene, states (2): "From here we learn that one should never keep up a quarrel." 
 
Yet here is the simple question: Must we derive this noble injunction from this incident? Hasn't the Torah&nbsp;already stated explicitly (3), "You shall not hate your brother in your heart... You shall love your fellow as yourself!" Does this straightforward commandment not teach us already that we ought never to maintain a quarrel or perpetuate a dispute, but must always attempt to eradicate strife? Why would the Talmudic sages feel compelled to derive this injunction from the particular ambiguous verse, "Moses stood up and went over to Dathan and Abiram"?</div>

<div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 13pt; text-align: justify;">A Profile of Quarrelers</div>

<div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 13pt; text-align: justify;">To understand this, we must examine the profiles of these two quarrelers, Dathan and Abiram. The Torah&nbsp;reports four incidents about these two men, sufficient material to capture the nature of their relationship with Moses. 
 
Incident number one, at the beginning of Exodus, takes us back some 70 years, to Moses' youth (4). 
 
"Now it came to pass in those days that Moses grew up and went out to his brothers and looked at their burdens. He saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man of his brothers. He turned this way and that way, and he saw that there was no person present; so he struck the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 
 
He went out on the second day, and behold, two Hebrew men were quarreling, and he said to the wicked one, 'Why are you going to strike your friend?' And the man retorted, 'Who made you a man, a prince, and a judge over us? Do you plan to slay me as you have slain the Egyptian?' Moses became frightened and said, 'Indeed, the matter has become known!'" 
 
Who were the two Hebrews quarreling with each other? The Talmud and the Midrash (5) deduce from the wording that they were Dathan and Abiram. 
 
Incident number two&nbsp;occurs shortly after the Exodus when the heavenly Manna begins falling daily in the desert to nourish the wandering Jews (6): 
 
"Moses said to them [the Jewish people], 'Let no one leave over any of it until morning.' But some men did not obey Moses and left over some of it until morning, and it bred worms and became putrid. Moses became angry with them." 
 
Who were these men that betrayed Moses' instruction? The Midrash (7) deduces from the wording, yet again, that it was Dathan and Abiram. 
 
Incident number three&nbsp;occurs one year later when the spies returned from the Holy Land and dissuaded their brethren from the motivation and willingness to conquer and settle the Land of Israel (8): 
 
"The people wept that night. All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, and the entire community said to them: 'If only we had died in the land of Egypt… Why is G-d bringing us to this Land to die by the sword?'" 
 
"And one man said to his brother, 'Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt!" 
 
Who exactly was this man who spoke these words to his brother? Here again, tradition teaches (9) that it was a conversation between Dathan and Abiram. 
 
Finally, the fourth incident recorded above, tells the story of how Dathan and Abiram not only rejected Moses' plea that they come to see him but went so far as to call him a killer. 
 
Professional Rabble-Rousers 
 
These four incidents paint a fairly accurate picture of Dathan and Abiram's characters. They were not idealistic adversaries, disputing Moses for ideological reasons: the fact is that they quarreled between themselves too, independent of Moses. Nor were they driven by envy, seeking the power and prestige possessed by Moses: the fact is that they fought Moses long before he became a leader. 
 
Dathan and Abiram, it appears, were rabble-rousers who would not miss an opportunity to fight Moses, even if they stood to gain nothing. They were forever determined to undermine Moses and his authority. They even had the audacity of suggesting that Moses was a killer and that he would poke their eyes out, as though he were a sadist. Dathan and Abiram, it seems, despised Moses because he was their opposite: he stood for everything they loathed. 
 
It is thus astonishing that after all of these incidents, after an animosity that persisted for close to 70 years, and even after G-d instructed&nbsp;Moses to ensure that everybody departs from their midst, "Moses stood up and went over to Dathan and Abiram" to try and assuage their ire against him. This makes little sense. One could imagine some Jews suggesting to Moses that his behavior was humiliating and futile. "You know, Moses, that these guys loathe you. For seven decades they haven't missed an opportunity to campaign against you. Even as you invited them to discuss peace, they responded with nasty words. Moses! For the sake of your dignity and G-d's dignity, it is below you to approach them.” 
 
"Do not be kinder and wiser than G-d," they must have argued. "If G-d commanded you to stay away from them, just stay away.” (10)</div>

<div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 13pt; text-align: justify;">Boundless Dedication</div>

<div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 13pt; text-align: justify;">Yet here we are allowed a glimpse into what made Moses the human being he was. Here we encounter the gigantic heart of Moses. His dedication, loyalty, and love to every single member of his people knew no bounds. Even as his fiercest and lifelong enemies were engaged in an intense battle against him, he would not give up on the chance of seeking peace with them and saving their lives. 
 
Ultimately, it is this verse -- "Moses stood up and went over to Dathan and Abiram" -- that demonstrates to us why the mutiny against Moses was so profoundly wrong. It was Moses' uncompromising identification with his people, no matter to what depths they might have fallen, that made him qualified to have all the power he had. Only a human being so selfless and humble can be trusted with so much power. Moses' extraordinary dedication to his people turned him into the authentic and quintessential Jewish leader. 
 
Only Peace 
 
Now we can understand the Talmudic comment that "From here we that learn that one should never keep up a quarrel." 
 
The biblical instruction "You shall not hate your brother in your heart... You shall love your fellow as yourself" merely suggests that one should not foster animosity in one's heart; one must expose and deal with his or her grudges, and ultimately learn to love his fellow human being, since, on a deeper soul- level, we are children of one G-d (11). 
 
But how about when you feel that somebody really has issues with you and is addicted to the hate? What about when you can justly assume that no matter what you will do, this person will never change? Why not just write him off and accept the quarrel as an immutable fact of life? Why not make peace with the state of war? 
 
This is what Moses taught us at the moment&nbsp;when he "stood up and went over to Dathan and Abiram." "Never keep up a quarrel." Despite the fact that he could have rightly assumed that his adversaries would not change their position, he did not allow any assumptions based on past experiences to stop him from his peace efforts. Moses knew that fighting and animosity among Jews was a malignant disease, and he would not give up the slightest opportunity to stop it! 
 
In his Tanya, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi states (12): "Each and every soul of the house of Israel contains within it something of the quality of our teacher Moses." This means that we, too, are empowered to emulate Moses' example at least in some small fashion. To become comfortable with disunity and fragmentation is a tragedy. We must never cease to confront our arrogance or insecurity and strive for peace even with people we can easily write off.</div>

<div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 13pt; text-align: justify;">To be sure, if someone is endangering someone's life, or causing damage, you have to create the proper boundaries and stop the abuse and evil behavior at all costs. Never allow your idealism to allow innocent people to suffer. But whatever we can do to help people repent, and whatever we can do to generate peace and love, even if it requires extreme humility and sacrifice, it is well worth it.&nbsp; 
 
(This essay is based on an address by the Lubavitcher Rebbe -- whose yartzeit is this Shabbos, 3 Tamuz -- Shabbas Parshas Korach 5740, June 14, 1980 (13)). 
 
1) Numbers Chapter 16. 
2) Talmud Sanhedrin p. 110a. 
3) Leviticus 19:17-18. 
4) Exodus 2: 11-14. 
5) Talmud Nedarim 64b; Targum Yonasan and Rashi to Exodus ibid. 
6) Exodus 16:19-20. 
7) Midrash Rabah Shemos 1:29; 25:10 and Rashi to Exodus ibid. 
8) Numbers 14: 1-4. 
9) Rabanu Bechayei to Exodus 2:13. 
10) Moses Himself would ultimately call them "wicked" (Numbers 16:26.) 
11) See Tanya chapter 32. 
12) Chapter 42. 
13) Published in Likkutei Sichos vol. 28 pp. 98-103. 
My thanks to Shmuel Levin for his editorial assistance.</div>

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