If we can find the afikoman, maybe we can talk across our divides about the war

Does it matter who hides the afikoman?

“The point is that our tradition is rife with such twists,” writes Rudoren, “over how to fulfill any given mitzvah.” Illustration by Odeya Rosenband; photo by Lambert/Getty Images

By Jodi Rudoren April 19, 2024

I was a young adult, dozens of Passover Seders in the rear view, before I realized we were Doing It Wrong. Not the whole Seder, just the afikoman — that half-piece of matzo you tuck away in a special bag as the world’s lamest “dessert,” without which, the tradition goes, you cannot complete the Seder.

My sisters and I, like other Jewish kids the world over, knew the afikoman was one of the Seder rituals designed to keep us engaged, and we were game. We’d plot creative new spots in our living room to hide the thin package, and look forward to the little gifts we’d inevitably collect by night’s end.

Yes, I said hide, not find. In my family, the kids hide the afikoman while the Seder leader is distracted, then hold it “ransom” when the leader needs but cannot find it, negotiating for the aforementioned gifts that the leader always, miraculously, has at the ready.

I have come to understand that this approach is not the norm. Turns out most Seders have the olds hiding and the kids finding, then trading, the prized piece of matzo for those miraculously-at-the-ready gifts so the Seder can conclude.

Reader, I’ve done it both ways, and I’m here to tell you: My family’s way makes more sense. If the leader needs the afikoman, why would they hide it? Much more logical that the mischievous and easily distracted kids do so as a prank. If the kids don’t care about finishing the Seder, why would they bother looking? Just for some lame — sorry Mom — coloring book or Starbuck’s gift card? Not my kids.

But that is beside the point. The point is that our tradition is rife with such twists, with machlokot — disputes — over how to fulfill any given mitzvah, with people of good faith seeing the same situation through different, even opposing, lenses. And we continue to tell the story, generation after generation.

I am not suggesting that the afikoman is a reasonable metaphor for the Israel-Hamas war. I understand that some disputes have real stakes, and real moral issues weighing on each side.

But we can learn a lot from disputes whose outcomes do not matter about how to deal with those that do. And thinking seriously about something as silly as who hides the afikoman might at least help us find ways to sit around the same Seder table with people who disagree about the very substantive challenges we face, to discuss what divides us with humility and respect.

Here are a few principles I’m trying to hold onto during these days of difficult conversations:

Avoid litmus tests. Nobody would suggest that someone who observes Passover and attends Seders but has the kids hide the afikoman instead of the adults is “not Jewish.” So stop saying that about Jews who call for an immediate ceasefire or an end to the occupation, or even oppose the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. They are not kapos, they are not self-haters, they just disagree with you on a very important and emotional issue.But also: Stop suggesting that people who do not use the word “genocide” or “apartheid” do not care about Palestinian human rights.
Come at questions with curiosity. Most people’s answer to why the kids or the adults hide the afikoman at their Seders is the same: That’s what I grew up with. Which, by the way, is a fine reason, at least according to the Talmud; minhag avoteinu b’yadeinu, it says, we should keep the rituals of our parents in our hands. This is, by the way, why many American Jews continue to have two Seders even though we now know well on which day the new moon falls.But when you ask someone how they came to their position on the two-state solution or who they think should be responsible for bringing food into Gaza, the answers are likely to be more complicated and nuanced, maybe even upsetting. Ask with an opennness to hearing something new, with an eagerness for understanding. Pro tip: “But do you condemn Hamas?” is not a question that comes from curiosity.
The debate is the destination. You do not have to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at your Seder table. (You do have to decide who will hide the afikoman, though perhaps that’s another good rationalization for two Seders — kids hide the first night, grown-ups the second.)Rabbi Benji Samuels of Congregation Shaarei Tefillah in Newton, Massachusetts, where I grew up, reminded me of an old joke playing off the debate over whether the congregation should stand or sit during the Mourner’s Kaddish. The rabbi in the joke consults an old man: Is the tradition to sit? No, the elder says, that is not the tradition. So we stand? No.But everyone is yelling at each other about this all the time, the rabbi laments. That, says the wise old man, is the tradition!

The tradition of the afikoman, meanwhile, appears to come from a line in the Talmud that reads, “We grab the matzot on the night of Passover, so that the children will not sleep.”

Our editorial fellow, Odeya Rosenband, plumbed the depths of the internet, and found that — at least according to this recent article in Haaretz — the tradition of parents hiding it dates back to Maimonides and the 12th century, while my family’s twist, kids hiding and holding it for ransom, started in the 17th.

North African Jews, meanwhile, wrap the afikoman in white and carry it around on their shoulders, according to the National Jewish Outreach Project, while Iraqi Jews conduct a dialogue while holding it. “Where are you from?” the adults might ask. “Egypt,” the kids answer. Where are you going? Jerusalem. Etc.

A Chabad rabbi named Yossi Yaffe was quoted in this 2019 article saying the hide-and-seek afikoman ritual teaches “children to search and look for this wonderful future.”

One of the most comprehensive resources Odeya found was Sefaria’s “Story of the Afikoman,” which lists biblical and rabbinic references to the afikoman, as well as modern stories and mentions in the media. “There is also symbolism about having the next generation involved in bringing together that which was broken,” it notes, “particularly that which was broken by the previous generation.”

Perhaps the afikoman is something of a metaphor for the war after all.

Jodi Rudoren has been editor-in-chief of the Forward since 2019. She previously spent 21 years at The New York Times, including a stint as Jerusalem bureau chief. Twitter: @rudoren. Email: [email protected].

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

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