The Afikomen: My Body Broken for You

Pesach 5781

by Jared Eaton, Simchat Yisrael, West Haven, CT

During the festival of Pesach, Jewish families around the world connect themselves to one of the greatest stories ever told by celebrating the Passover Seder, an interactive dinner where we retell the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

But a lesser-known Passover tradition is the Seudat Mashiach, or Messiah’s Meal. Instituted by the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidic Judaism, in the 1700s, the Messiah’s Meal is eaten on the final day of Passover and looks forward to future divine deliverance.

The haftarah for the final day of Passover is from the book of Isaiah, and includes prophecies of a leader upon whom “the spirit of the Lord shall rest, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and heroism, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord” (Isa 11:2).

It has become traditional to usher out Passover by looking forward to the arrival of this Messiah and the redemption that he will bring to the world. Messiah’s Meal has become a beloved tradition for some believers in Yeshua who combine the traditions of Seudat Mashiach with our understanding of the identity of the Messiah. But even the traditional first night Seder points to Messiah Yeshua, and perhaps in no place more clearly than in the hiding of the Afikomen.

For the uninitiated, one of the traditions of the Passover Seder is a special bag called a matzah tash that has three compartments, each with a piece of matzah, unleavened bread, in it. The tradition is to take the middle piece out and break it in half. Half of the matzah is placed back in the matzah tash, but the other half is wrapped in a linen napkin. This piece is called the Afikomen.

Afikomen (epikomon, ἐπὶ κῶμον) is a Greek word that means “that which comes after” or “dessert,” and is a substitute for the Passover sacrifice, which was the last thing eaten at the Passover Seder during the eras of the First and Second Temples (Talmud, Pesachim 119b).

The Afikomen is hidden by an adult for the duration of the first part of the Seder, and after dinner the children search for it and bring it back to their parents to be redeemed for a prize. Traditionally, the Seder cannot end until the Afikomen is found and redeemed.

It’s a beloved tradition, but Judaism has no authoritative explanation as to the origin or the meaning of the Afikomen. A number of diverse and often conflicting theories have emerged over the centuries. One tradition holds that the three pieces of matzah represent the three classes of Jews, the Priests, the Levites, and the Israelites. Another that they represent Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But these are later innovations; they are not mentioned in the tractates on Passover in either the Mishnah or the Talmud. And even if this were the case then why do we break the middle piece? What would breaking the Priests or Isaac accomplish? Some rabbis believe that breaking the matzah represents the splitting of the Red Sea, but if that’s the case why do we hide one piece of . . . the ocean? One tradition, cited  by the Chasidic Lubavitcher Rebbe in his Haggadah, even says that we hide the Afikomen so that it doesn’t get eaten by accident before the meal is over.

None of these theories is satisfying. But there is one other that I think makes perfect sense. One that ties all of the symbolism together and tells a cohesive story. And that theory, first presented by Austrian-Jewish scholar Robert Eisler in 1925, is that that the tradition of the Afikomen was conceived by the first century Jewish followers of Yeshua, and that the Afikomen is a symbol of our Messiah.[1]

The very appearance of the matzah and the way it’s prepared is indicative of Yeshua. Matzah has stripes burned into from the oven rack and must be pierced to allow air to escape to prevent it from rising. In the same way, our Messiah was striped by the lash and his hands and feet were pierced by nails.

The three compartments of the matzah tash represent three ways that we experience God, through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And we take the middle piece, representing the Son, and we break it, as Yeshua was broken for us.

After his death on the cross, Yeshua’s body was wrapped in a linen shroud and hidden away for three days until his resurrection. So too, we wrap the Afikomen in a linen cloth and hide it away until the end of the Seder.

When the meal ends, the children search for the Afikomen and bring it to be redeemed. In this act, we are emulating the redemption that we have in the Father through the sacrifice of Messiah Yeshua. For just as Yeshua, through his death and resurrection, has redeemed us from sin and death, the Afikomen too must be redeemed by the father of the family.

And how fitting is it that it is the children who go to seek Yeshua? Messiah taught that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the children (Matt 19:14), and indeed we ourselves must change and become like little children if we wish to enter the Kingdom of heaven with them (Matt 18:3).

And just as the Seder cannot end until the Afikomen comes back, the Kingdom of Heaven will not be established until the return of the Messiah.

It’s true that the Word “Afikomen” is often translated as “that which comes after”, but according to David Daube, a preeminent twentieth-century scholar of Biblical Law, a better translation is (aphikomenos Αφικομενός) “the one who has arrived.” [2]

And if nothing else, we know that Yeshua himself has likened the matzah of the Passover meal to his body. At the last supper, the Passover Seder he ate before he suffered, Yeshua took the matzah, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24 KJV).

On Passover, the Jewish people connect themselves to one of the greatest stories ever told. And believers in Messiah Yeshua also connect ourselves to another story, one told nearly 1500 years after God freed the Hebrew slaves. This Passover, as we break, hide, and redeem the Afikomen, “the one who has arrived,” we all look forward to and share in the deliverance we have in Messiah Yeshua. 

Chag Pesach Sameach!

[1] “Das Letzte Abendmahl” [The Final Supper], appeared in the journal Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft [ZNW] Vol. 24 (1925): 161-92 and Vol. 25 (1926): 5-37.

[2] Daube, D. (1966). He that cometh (pp. 6-14). London: Tolley.