The Story of the Afikomen

Jewish Jokes:

Q: What do you call a person who derives pleasure from eating the bread of affliction?

A: A matza-chist!

Q: Why did the matzah quit its job?

A: Because it didn’t get a raise!

Q: What’s the best cheese for matzah pizza?

A: Matza-rella!

The Afikomen "on one foot":

The afikomen is a piece of matzah that we find and eat before midnight at the Passover Seder. There are three strands to the story of the afikomen, one having to do with hiding it, one having to do with eating it, and one having to do with the word "afikomen". These strands eventually converge in the Middle Ages. The following sources are arranged by source and relate to the different strands.

​​​​​​​The Afikomen in the Torah

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Exodus, right after the Pharaoh expelled the Israelites from Egypt following the Tenth Plague.

​​​​​​​What does this have to do with the afikomen?

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Exodus, in the part when G-d is telling Moses what's going to happen for the Tenth Plague.

​​​​​​​What time will the Tenth Plague happen?

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Exodus, when G-d is giving Moses further instructions about what the Israelites should do to prepare for the Tenth Plague.

Based on the previous text, what time does "on that night" refer to?

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Exodus, from the same set of instructions about how the Israelites should prepare for the Tenth Plague. When it says "the flesh", it means "the Passover lamb that was sacrificed" (from whence the blood came for "Bloody Door Day"). This verse is the origin for multiple things, including: 1. The rule that the Passover sacrifice had to be roasted 2. Three of the original Four Questions 3. The Hillel Sandwich (with charoset replacing the lamb) and 4. Rabban Gamliel's "Three Things You Have to Mention".

The verse can be interpreted using a technique known as "g'zeira shava", which is basically textual "Shoots and Ladders". The way it works is "If a phrase means one thing in one place, then perhaps it means the same thing when it's used somewhere else".

Based on the previous two questions, and using a "g'zeira shava", what time does the Passover Sacrifice have to be eaten?

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Exodus, from the instructions to the Israelites before the Tenth Plague.

What do you do if your child doesn’t ask you “What do you mean by this rite”? How do you prompt them to ask?

The Afikomen in the Mishnah

Context: This is from the Mishnah, Masechet (Tractate) Pesachim, which is about Pesach (Passover), as one might guess. Chapter 10 of this tractate is all about the Seder. Incidentally, this is cited as the answer provided to the Wise Child in the Four Children.

According to the Mishnah, should we have an afikomen on Passover?

Context: This is from the Mishnah, Masechet (Tractate) Pesachim. It comes after the previous text. "Render one's hands ritually impure" basically means "it's not OK".

​​​​​​​By what time must the Passover sacrifice be eaten?

The Afikomen in the Talmud

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Pesachim, which, like the Mishnah version, is about Peseach (Passover). This text is discussion the Mishnah's ruling that there shouldn't be afikomen after the Passover Sacrifice.

The question is, "What does 'don't have afikomen' mean"? There are a few answers:

1. Don't bring food from one seder to another seder after dinner (Rav's answer). This wasn't OK for groups eating the Passover Sacrifice in the Temple - they had to eat their food with only their dinner party (Mishnah Pesachim 6:6). This assumes that "afikoman" comes from "afiku mani", "taking out the vessels" (like bringing the vessel with the meat to another group). Alternatively, this connects to the Greek word "epikomion", meaning "a traveling dinner party" (like a progressive dinner) -- the Passover meal should be a sacred meal, not merely an excuse for a good time.

2. Don't eat savory after-dinner treats, like mushrooms (Shmuel's answer). This connects to the Aramaic "afiku min", meaning "bring out delicacies to end the meal".

3. Don't eat sweet after dinner treats, like dates and nuts (Rabbi Yochanan's answer). This connects to the Greek word "afikomen", meaning "dessert".

4. No orgies after dinner (per Roman custom)

Which explanation is must convincing for you?

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Pesachim. It comes as part of an extended discussion (Pesachim 119b:11-120a:5) about whether you can have afikomen after matzah (answer: No, but Shmuel thinks Yes) and whether you fulfill your commandment to eat matzah by eating some after dinner (answer: Yes).

Note that the Aramaic word for "sponge cakes" is "sufganin". This is the origin of the word "sufganiyot", based on the North African fried dough for Chanukah.

Based on the Talmud, how much matzah do you have to eat after dinner?

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Pesachim. It’s from a discussion about whether you could eat the Passover sacrifice after midnight (answer: No).

According to this text from the Talmud, what’s the last time you can eat the afikomen?

Context: This is from the Babylonian Talmud, Masechet (Tractate) Pesachim. It comes from a discussion about the Four Cups and how everybody, regardless of age or gender, is supposed to drink 4 cups of grape liquid at the Seder. This text also touches on the idea that according to the Torah parents are supposed to tell their children about the Exodus, but if children don't ask then you need to prompt them by doing things that seem different so that children will ask why this meal is different from all other meals.

How is this text relevant to the afikomen?

A Recap So Far (1200 BCE - 500 CE)

The Hide-and-Seek Strand

- When we left Egypt, we were commanded in the Torah that when our children ask about the Passover ritual we should tell them that G-d took us out of Egypt (1240 BCE, written down 444 BCE).

- The rabbis of the Mishnah (200 CE) wondered about what to do if your child doesn’t ask you in the first place — how can you fulfill this requirement? Their answer became the Four Questions.

- The rabbis of the Talmud (500 CE) worried about how to provoke children to question on their own why Passover was different. One of their answers was that if you take the matzah off the table, this will be different enough that it will provoke a question.

The Eating Matzah Strand

- According to the Torah, the Israelites were supposed to eat the Passover sacrifice together with matzah.

- Through a series of textual interpretations, the rabbis of the Mishnah concluded that the Passover sacrifice had to be eaten by midnight.

- The rabbis of the Talmud take this one step further and say that matzah also had to be finished by midnight.

The Afikomen Strand

- The Mishnah makes one other statement that is relevant to our story. It says that there should not be any “afikomen” after the Passover sacrifice.

- While this term may have been self-evident to the rabbis of the Mishnah, the rabbis of the Talmud are confused by it and they offer a few possibilities as to what it means.

- One is that Jews are not supposed to go from house to house on Passover, having a progressive carousing party. They should rather take this as a sacred opportunity to think about the Exodus.

- The other main opinion is that this means some sort of dessert, either savory or sweet. Thus, people shouldn’t eat after they’ve had the Passover sacrifice so that the taste of it remains in their mouth. Once the Temple was destroyed, this approach was transferred to the matzah, so that the matzah was the last thing tasted.

​​​​​​​The Afikomen in the Middle Ages

Context: These are from the Machzor Vitry, which is a French prayerbook / legal text written by a student of Rashi (Rabbi Simcha of Vitry) around 1075. We learn from this text that Rashi taught that one puts half of the broken matzah aside to eat after the meal. This is also the first time that this piece of matzah is considered “the afikomen”.

The text may reflect different thoughts about the order of things at the Seder, insofar as at one point it says “We do not drink after the afikomen” and at another point it talks about the Third and Fourth Cups being after the Afikomen. The change may have come about because there was nothing eaten or drunk after the Passover Sacrifice, but the afikomen only stands for that sacrifice and thus we have the last cups after it.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of just putting the afikomen under the tablecloth?

The Afikomen in the Mishneh Torah

Context: The Mishneh Torah was written by Maimonides (1135-1204, which you can remember as “a little less than half an hour”). It was his attempt to reorganize all the laws in the Talmud into more logical categories and remove the discussion so just the bottom line remained. What we learn from here is that it used to be that at the end of the Passover meal one ate an olive-sized piece of the Passover Sacrifice, and now one eats an olive-sized piece of matzah and doesn’t eat anything after it. Additionally, if you only have a single olive-sized piece of matzah, it is more important to save it for the afikomen, and at that point you can also say the blessing for eating matzah (may be relevant if somebody is gluten-intolerant but can handle a very small amount of gluten without adverse affects).

Maimonides tweaks the language of the Talmud in an important way here. The Talmud says “One grabs the matzot”. Maimonides says “We snatch the matzah from each other”. This is a step in the evolution of the afikomen.

What’s similar and different about our Afikomen practices today?

The Afikomen in the Shulchan Aruch

Context: This is from the Shulchan Aruch, written in 1563 by Rabbi Joseph Caro. It is a law code summarizing Jewish law up to that point. Rabbi Caro was Sephardic. Rabbi Moses Isserles was trying to write the same thing from an Ashkenazic perspective, but Rabbi Caro published first, so Rabbi Isserles’s gloss, known as the “Rema” is added when Ashkenazi practice is different from what Rabbi Caro published. The reclining is because the upper-class Greco-Romans reclined at their symposia and banquets, and they were the freest people in the world at the time the Rabbis put together the Seder.

What’s the same as our current practice and what’s different?

A Recap Since 500 CE (600 CE - 1600 CE)

Rashi's additions

- Rashi (1040-1105) makes a number of afikomen innovations, as recorded by his student in the “Machzor Vitry”.

- First, Rashi teaches that after we dip the green vegetable for Karpas we should break one of three matzot.

- Half should go back in the pile and half should be set aside “under the tablecloth” for eating after the meal as the last thing tasted.

- This is to be referred to as the “afikomen”, and it represents that Passover Sacrifice that was to be the last thing eaten at the Passover meal.

Maimonide's additions

- Maimonides (1135-1204) builds on this, adding that we should eat at least an olive-sized piece of matzah at the end of the meal.

- He also says that if you only have one bit of matzah, you should eat it at the end of the meal as the afikomen and say the “Motzi” and “Matzah” blessings over it then, rather than eat it at the usual spot before the meal and forego the afikomen.

- As mentioned before, Maimonides says that we should “snatch” the matzah from each other.

The Shulchan Aruch's additions

- In the Shulchan Aruch (1563), it becomes the middle matzah that is broken for the afikomen.

- The afikomen is then wrapped, perhaps because the bowls of dough were wrapped when the Israelites left Egypt, and given to somebody.

- Other rules from the Shulchan Aruch include not making a blessing over the afikomen, eating it while reclining, and finishing it by midnight.

Contemporary Afikomen Customs

- The Afikomen is created when the middle matzah is broken in half at the Yachatz step of the seder. The smaller half of the matzah is returned between the other unbroken pieces of matzah, and the larger half is wrapped up, perhaps in a special Afikomen Bag (though this is not necessary).

- We break the innermost piece of matzah because we all have aspects inside us that have been broken. We look forward to the day when we can be redeemed by becoming whole again, perhaps with the assistance of others.

- Some point out that even though the word “Seder” means “order”, breaking things early in the seder (and not on neat perforated lines) means that there will always be some disorder that happens no matter how much we try to order our lives.

- Wrapping the matzah is both practical (so you know what you’ve set aside for later) and symbolic (because the Israelites wrapped their dough bowls when they carried them on their shoulders during the Exodus from Egypt. Wrapping it also both protects it and collects crumbs during the hiding process.

- Some Ashkenazi children steal the afikomen from the leader and hide it somewhere. After the meal ends, the leader ransoms it back.

- Sephardi Jews, and many Ashkenazi Jews, don’t like the idea of teaching children to steal, so an adult will hide the afikomen for the children to find (often during Rachtza or Shulchan Oreich, either hidden by the leader, an adult family member, or an adult guest). Again, it is ransomed back.

- If there are multiple children present, there may be “decoy” afikomen, or the afikomen may be broken into multiple pieces for each child to find one.

- The custom of hiding the afikomen rather than just sticking it under the tablecloth dates back to the Middle Ages and is designed to keep children engaged at the seder. There is also symbolism about having the next generation involved in bringing together that which was broken, particularly that which was broken by the previous generation.

- The step of the seder where the afikomen is found is called “Tzafun”, meaning “hidden”. It is related to the word “Tzafon”, meaning “north”, because in Israel the north is hidden by the mountains of Lebanon.

- Other interpretations given to the afikomen being found during the Tzafun step include: The ultimate repair of our broken world is at a time hidden from us, the poor must set aside food for a hidden and unknown future, and there is always more to life than what we know.

- After the afikomen has been returned and ransomed, everybody eats an olive-sized piece before Birkat HaMazon.

- Some have the custom of saying before eating “In memory of the Passover sacrifice that was eaten at the end of the meal”.

Sephardic and Mizrahi Afikomen Traditions

- Yemenite Jews traditionally only have 2 pieces of matzah at the seder. They break the lower one for the afikomen.

- It is thought that the afikomen has special sanctity, particularly in Sephardic communities.

- Jews from Iran, Afghanistan, Salonika, Kurdistan, and Bukhara keep a piece in their pocket all year for good luck

- In some places, pregnant women carry it with salt and then hold it in their hand during delivery.

- Another belief is that if you keep a piece of the afikomen for 7 years, then it can stop a flood if thrown into a turbulent river.

- Kurdi Jews and Jews in Hebron tie a piece at the seder to the arm of one of their sons and say "So may you tie the ketubah to the arm of your bride"

- For Jews in Baghdad, somebody would leave the seder with the afikomen and return dressed as a traveler. The leader would ask "Where are you from?" and the person would answer "Egypt". The leader would ask "Where are you going?" and the person would respond "Jerusalem". The leader would ask "What are you carrying?" and the person would respond "Matzah". Other Sephardic communities would do the same thing but with a child, who would then ask the Four Questions. That child would then guard the afikomen until after dinner.

- In Djerba (Tunisia) the seder leader would give the afikomen to someone in the family; that person would tie it on their shoulder and go visit relatives and friends to forecast the coming of the Messiah.

- Some Sephardic Jews in Israel had the custom of wrapping the afikomen in white cloth after it was broken, and each person putting it on their right shoulder followed by their left shoulder. It then gets passed to the next person. The last person says Exodus 12:34, which is about the bowls of dough being wrapped and carried on people's shoulders when they left Egypt. The person is then asked "Where do you come from?" and they respond "From Egypt". They are asked "Where are you going?" and the person responds "To Jerusalem". Then everybody shouts "Next year in Jerusalem!"

Other Uses of the Afikomen

- Rebecca Franklin, a Black Jew, makes a homemade matzah shaped like the continent of Africa called the “Afrikomen”.

Koshersoul, by Michael Twitty, 2022 (p. 349, 242-257)

- In 2023, Tzipporah Cohen and Yaara Eshet published a wordless picture book called Afikomen, in which the afikomen becomes a time-traveling device back to Moses’ journey down the river.

With appreciation to: Yeshivat Maharat, Avram Schwartz, Tzvi Sinensky, Gavriel Fagin, Annie Lumerman, Mordechai Lewis, Rabbi Marina Yergin, Rebecca Thrope, 929 English, Shayla Team, Brett Lockspieser, Jessie Mallor, Simona Gilman, Naomi Richman, Haim Ovadia, LearnReligions.com, JewishVirtualLibrary, Vox, MyJewishLearning, and Debbie Friedman.

Appendix A: Songs and Videos featuring the Afikomen

Appendix B: A Prose Version of this Story

Appendix B: Other Texts About the Afikomen

“Why are We Playing Hide-and-Seek?’

By: David Schwartz

When your children ask you, “What do you mean by this rite?”, you shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord” ~ Exodus 12:26-27

My first Seder was when I was 11 months old. My parents put a piece of matzah on my high chair tray, covered it with a napkin, and then clapped when I uncovered the matzah. Since then, finding the afikomen has always been a memorable part of the seder for me. Yet why do we play hide and seek with the afikomen? The answer goes back 3,200 years, in two separate stories that only merge 800 years ago.

When we left Egypt, we were commanded in the Torah that when our children ask about the Passover ritual we should tell them that G-d took us out of Egypt (1240 BCE, written down 444 BCE). The rabbis of the Mishnah (200 CE) wondered about what to do if your child doesn’t ask you in the first place — how can you fulfill this requirement? Their answer became the Four Questions. The rabbis of the Talmud (500 CE) worried about how to provoke children to question on their own why Passover was different. One of their answers was that if you take the matzah off the table, this will be different enough that it will provoke a question. Maimonides (1135-1204) takes this one step further and says that we should snatch the matzah from each other.

According to the Torah, the Israelites were supposed to eat the Passover sacrifice together with matzah. Through a series of textual interpretations, the rabbis of the Mishnah concluded that the Passover sacrifice had to be eaten by midnight. The rabbis of the Talmud take this one step further and say that matzah also had to be finished by midnight.

The Mishnah makes one other statement that is relevant to our story. It says that there should not be any “afikomen” after the Passover sacrifice. While this term may have been self-evident to the rabbis of the Mishnah, the rabbis of the Talmud are confused by it and they offer a few possibilities as to what it means. One is that Jews are not supposed to go from house to house on Passover, having a progressive carousing party. They should rather take this as a sacred opportunity to think about the Exodus. The other main opinion is that this means some sort of dessert, either savory or sweet. Thus, people shouldn’t eat after they’ve had the Passover sacrifice so that the taste of it remains in their mouth. Once the Temple was destroyed, this approach was transferred to the matzah, so that the matzah was the last thing tasted.

Five hundred years later, Rashi (1040-1105) makes a number of afikomen innovations, as recorded by his student in the “Machzor Vitry”. First, Rashi teaches that after we dip the green vegetable for Karpas we should break one of three matzot. Half should go back in the pile and half should be set aside “under the tablecloth” for eating after the meal as the last thing tasted. This is to be referred to as the “afikomen”, and it represents that Passover Sacrifice that was to be the last thing eaten at the Passover meal. Maimonides (1135-1204) builds on this, adding that we should eat at least an olive-sized piece of matzah at the end of the meal. He also says that if you only have one bit of matzah, you should eat it at the end of the meal as the afikomen and say the “Motzi” and “Matzah” blessings over it then, rather than eat it at the usual spot before the meal and forego the afikomen. As mentioned before, Maimonides says that we should “snatch” the matzah from each other. In the Shulchan Aruch (1563), it becomes the middle matzah that is broken for the afikomen. The afikomen is then wrapped, perhaps because the bowls of dough were wrapped when the Israelites left Egypt, and given to somebody. Other rules from the Shulchan Aruch include not making a blessing over the afikomen, eating it while reclining, and finishing it by midnight.

Today, the afikomen is created by breaking the middle matzah at the Yachatz step of the seder. In many families, the afikomen is hidden by an adult for the children to find; when I was growing up the afikomen was broken into as many pieces as children so everybody found it, though one year there was also a decoy afikomen. For Jews in Baghdad, somebody would leave the seder with the afikomen and return dressed as a traveler. The leader would ask "Where are you from?" and the person would answer "Egypt". The leader would ask "Where are you going?" and the person would respond "Jerusalem". The leader would ask "What are you carrying?" and the person would respond "Matzah". Other Sephardic communities would do the same thing but with a child, who would then ask the Four Questions. That child would then guard the afikomen until after dinner.

Whether you are at a seder with a child or not this year, there is power in having the afikomen be the last thing we taste – we want to leave the seder with the taste of freedom in our mouths, and the resolution to bring that same freedom to others who are still enslaved in different ways today. Wishing you “a zissen Pesach”, a sweet Passover!

Where Did You Hide the Afikomen?

By: Rabbi Steven Wernick

….. [introduction about hiding the afikomen and where you might do it] Hiding the afikomen clearly is one of Passover’s most beloved traditions, but have you ever wondered what its purpose might be? Why do we do it?

Over the centuries many answers have been offered. Rambam suggests that it is an unusual action designed to pique a child’s curiosity, to inspire questions, and to keep children awake and engaged throughout the seder.

The Vilna Gaon teaches that we hide the afikomen to prevent its embarrassment, because it is overlooked until after the meal. The other matzot, after all, receive a bracha, so we cover this one and remove it from the table.

There are other explanations as well, many much more technical and legal in nature.

Because the seder may not be concluded until the afikomen is discovered and consumed, I believe there must be deeper meanings associated with this ritual. One, perhaps, has to do with wanting wholeness, but not having it. Brokenness is a symbol of incompleteness. Wholeness often is elusive. Live is not whole, yet we constantly look toward and strive for completion, for redemption. That our people’s original redemption from slavery to freedom happened once heartens us, because through recalling that redemption we know that our future redemption, both individual and national, is not a fantasy. This knowledge gives us hope.

We begin the story of our past afflictions with an appeal for hope in the present and with our gaze set on the future. We cannot see the future. We cannot even understand the full consequences of our present actions. We can, however, look back at past events and value them as a guide in our present actions as we prepare for a better tomorrow.

… [goes on to discuss strategic planning for USCJ]. Now is the time to leave Egypt behind and to move into the future that began with the revelation at Sinai. That future is not fully known, like the afikomen it is partially hidden, but I for one am looking forward to the journey to find it.

CJ (Conservative Judaism) Magazine, Spring 2011

Sephardic Custom B

While the basic text of the Haggadah and format of the seder is the same around the world, each community has its own unique customs. One such custom that is pervasive throughout the Sephardi communities is to dramatize the Exodus. Generally this takes place immediately following Yachatz, the breaking of the middle matzah, or after Ha Lachma Anya, the first paragraph of the Maggid section.

The basic script for this dramatization is as follows:

Person holding the afikomen (larger half of the broken matzah) says: "Their remaining possessions tied up in their bags on their shoulders and the children of Israel did as Moses commanded.”

Other Seder Participants: “From where are you coming?”

Afikomen holder: “From Egypt.”

Participants: “Where are you going?”

Afikomen holder: “To Jerusalem.”

Participants: “What are your supplies?”

Afikomen holder: “Matzah and Maror.”

This ceremony varies not only as to when it is said, but also who says it (sometimes only the leader, sometimes one child gets up and knocks on the door before the dialogue begins, and sometimes each participant of the Seder holds the afikomen in turn), and how the afikomen is wrapped and held (in a napkin or a bag, held on the right shoulder or thrown over the shoulder).

In the Yemenite community, there is a slightly different re-enacting of the Exodus. The seder leader rises, throws the afikomen bag over his shoulder like a knapsack and circles the table while leaning on a cane. As he walks about the room, the leader tells the other participants about his experiences and the miracles he witnessed as he came from Egypt.

The Meaning of the 'Afikomen'

Helen Plotkin

We focus on the middle matzo, representing the human situation. First, we acknowledge that the center does not hold: The middle matzo is broken. We put aside the larger half; what remains is small and ragged. We call it lachma anya—the bread of affliction, the bread of impoverishment and enslavement. We begin the Seder by recognizing that, like the Israelites in Egypt, our need for redemption is great. The world that we inhabit is broken, incomplete, full of suffering and despair. With our first bite of the middle matzo, we internalize this truth...

That first bite of broken matzo is meant to put us into the story in the most visceral possible way. Like the Israelites at the first Seder, described in Exodus 12, we are in a place of brokenness. And like them, we are standing in the doorway, we are setting out on a journey. In the central section of the Haggadah, called Magid—Telling, we relate the story of a people once confined, held back, going nowhere, stuck in bricks and mortar, now transformed into a nation on its way, with a vision of a promised land.

The Magid section tells the story of an exodus—a leaving of slavery, not an arriving in the promised land. To feel that we ourselves have gone out from Egypt is to feel that we have the freedom to be on our way; not that we have arrived at our final goal. The longest section of the Telling is based on a passage from Deuteronomy 26, in which the Israelites are taught what they should say when they have finally reaped the first harvest of the promised land... But the Haggadah leaves out the final line (verse 9), stopping short of the arrival. The story we tell places us in the wilderness: We have the power to move forward. But we still have a long way to go.

Still in the wilderness, we eat our dinner.

As we approach the end of the Seder, we come to the section in which we find and eat the afikoman, the section called Tzafun, which means “hidden” or “stored away.” The implication is that the afikoman represents something inaccessible, something not available to us in our everyday lives—complete and ultimate freedom, true redemption. Sated with family, learning, laughter, and food, we finally act out the repair of our broken world. When we eat the afikoman, the broken pieces of the human realm will get put back together—they will recombine inside us—they will become us. The bridge between heaven and earth will be repaired.

And this is the secret of the afikoman ritual: Whom must we trust to bring the other half? The children. In the end, the most important piece, the point of it all, the future, our own redemption, is in the hands of the younger generation. We have no choice but to trust them to bring it to the table... We recognize that perfection is hidden away, but with the ritual of the afikoman we live into our hope—our confidence—that it will be found and unwrapped by our children, so they may eat fully of the bread of redemption. The Seder is about pointing forward. Only the children can taste the future.

Yachatz - Breaking Our Hearts

Getzel Davis

In the mystical tradition, the middle matzah symbolizes the heart. It is broken by living amid the injustices in the world and witnessing so much suffering. In life, most of the time, we are unable to focus clearly on our heartbreak. It simply hurts too much and there is so much wrong. Instead, we cover it over and just try to move on. On Passover, as part of our freedom ritual, we reconnect with our own broken-heartedness. It is only from this connected place that we can begin to envision a perfected righteous world.

Sometimes, we adults are unable to reconnect with our broken hearts. That is what the role of children is at the Seder. Children (or our inner children) are not only are tasked with the important job of asking questions at the Seder, but also asked to seek out and find the afikoman. It is only then that we can move forward and sing the Halleluyah psalms that conclude the Seder. It takes the energy and open heart of a child to question the status quo and to reconnect us with what our hearts most yearn for. It is only from that place of wholeness that we and our world can truly become free.

The Seven Rules Of Mindful Eating (The Jewish Way)

• CHOOSE
  • Choose foods that are good for you. Make the choice to eat foods that will nourish the soul and body.
• SIT
  • Sit down. Don’t eat while standing or walking. Judaism teaches that a person should be concerned with personal dignity. Not to the point of arrogance, but there should be an awareness that a human being’s essence is something that must be reflected on the outside of a person as well as the inside. Eat at a table.
• COMMIT
  • Put enough food on your plate to satisfy your hunger without overloading or underloading your plate. Whatever’s there is going to be your portion.
• ACKNOWLEDGE
  • Say a blessing* over your food or drink. Acknowledge the source of the food and drink you are about to ingest and take a moment to be grateful for its presence.
• PACE
  • Eat at a medium-slow pace, putting your fork down into between bites. Aside from the obvious aesthetic drawbacks to using your fork like a backhoe, when you shovel food into your mouth, you tend to bow your head towards your food. Do you worship food? Is food your god? Do you submit to food–does it rule you?
• CHEW (BREATHE)
  • Breathe in between bites. Don’t talk while eating (R.Yosef Caro, Shulchan Aruch).
• COMPLETE
  • Interestingly enough, though eating only when truly hungry is the rule, there are times where Jewish law says one must eat even when not hungry. This includes the third Shabbos meal and the Afikomen (“Dessert” Matzoh) during the Pesach (Passover) Seder. But even at these times, we are forewarned not to overeat earlier so there will still be some room left!

“Little Meshuganeh Yids”

To the tune of “Three Blind Mice”

Little meshugeneh yids. Little meshugeneh yids.

See how they run. See how they look.

They all look under the leader's chair,

Who refuses to move as if she doesn’t care,

Did you ever see such a joyful affair,

As little meshugeneh yids?

- Rav Dani Victor