Afikoman Mystery
When the holiday of Passover draws near I think of all the wonderful customs. Many customs, thousands of years old, are very strange. For example dipping a vegetable into salt water to remember that many tears were shed in slavery (tears are bitter like salt water). Others are informative like reading the story of Passover from a book called the Haggadah whilst others are exotic. Eating a mixture of apples, pears, walnuts and red wine when grinded together look like mortar to remember the mortar used by the Hebrew slaves building pyramids. Each family also has some of their own personal customs passed on from generation to generation.
Passover marks the time when the Jewish people emerged from slavery as a free nation some 3310 years ago. The mass exodus from Egyptian slavery was experienced by millions of Jews. Tradition tells of a 40 year travel in the Sinai desert ending with entering the land of Canaan, called in the Bible The Land of Milk and Honey. Today it is the present State of Israel.
Jews, world over, will gather on Friday night, April 10th, to conduct a festive meal called the Seder, meaning order. Families gather together to drink four cups of wine and eat matzah, the unleavened bread. The wine symbolizes the joy of freedom and the four cups remind us of the four promises made by G‑d to redeem the Jews. The matzah symbolizes the bread of affliction eaten in Egypt. The Passover matzah is usually made from wheat and water and no eggs, salt or preservatives are added. Thus, the dough does not rise and the bread, when baked, remains flat and simple tasting. Others have a tradition that the matzah, the unleavened bread, is eaten to remember that the Jews left Egypt in such haste that they had not time to finish baking the dough and it simply was finished as a flat bread. A matzah is eaten at the end of the meal and is called the Afikoman. Regardless the reason for eating the matzah all agree that the highlight of the Passover meal is eating the matzah.
For children there is a very special custom. They get a chance to hide the Afikoman matzah. At the end of the meal the bargaining begins. The children will not tell anybody where they have hidden the Afikoman until they are promised a gift. Matzah for toys chant the little children at the seder meal. No toys - then no matzah say the children. Finally, after some lengthy bargaining the Afikoman matzah is redeemed and the children run happily off to bed. As the seder meal runs into the early morning hours and the children need to be kept up, this arrangement of Afikoman for prizes was made. The children stay up to the wee hours and participate in the seder. This custom usually works to keep the children up.
One year the following episode took place. It was a specially long Seder night. My father gathered all nine children to the Seder table along with my grandmother and some guests. It was a grand time. The house was full of people - children are coming in and out all the time. After a few cups of wine, the Seder songs and dance intensified. The house was full of song and joy. Each of us, especially the nine children, had a part in the Seder. One of us read the Haggadah, another sang the songs - each child and guest played a role in the festive night.
Around 12 midnight my father announced that it was time to eat the Afikoman. This was the time we children had waited for. We made our outright demands. Each of us presented our demands. By the time it came to the ninth child it was closer to one O'clock in the morning.
To everyones surprise the ninth child, my little 5 year old brother, Yisroel, had disappeared. If that wasnt bad enough, Yisroel had hid the Afikoman. We were in big trouble. No Seder is complete until the Afikoman is served. My mother and grandmother became frantic. Where was Yisroel? My father was angry. Where was the Afikoman. We, the children, were worried. How would we receive our prizes. It was just horrendous. The guests at the table were too full of wine and matzah to realize the situation. Pandemonium broke out as we searched the house from the bottom basement to the top third floor. We searched and searched for thirty minutes until Yisroel was found, soundly sleeping under his bed with the Afikoman matzah in his tiny hand. We were so happy to find him that none of us asked for our toys that night.
The next year a new family custom was innovated. Instead of looking for the Afikoman at the end of the meal the Afikoman is looked for at the beginning and toys negotiated at the very beginning of the Seder. Now that has been our family custom for a few years.
It is too bad that nowadays parents have to look for their grown children and not the Afikoman. They need to bring their children to attend the festive holiday Seder. How nice it would be if we could bring back the family that have forgotten the beauty of the customs and joy that the Passover Seder displays - A happy Passover to all of you.