New Source Sheet

The Mishnah both in the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud are in agreement and state categorically:

The literal translation denotes:

AFTER THE PASSOVER OFFERING YOU MAY NOT CONCLUDE WITH AFIKOMAN.

The proper translation of the Mishnah rule should read:

AFTER [eating of ] THE PASSOVER OFFERING, YOU [are forbidden to] LEAVE/EXIT [the current assembly where you ate the passover offering] TO PARTAKE IN AFIKOMAN [a post meal celebration from house to house with song and food].

The Mishnah as literature is LAW! It is the amendments to the TORAH which is the CONSTITUTION of the Jewish people. The word AFIKOMAN does not appear in the Bible. Only the Mishnah commands its presence at the "Seder." Our Mishnah introduces a brand new law, the law of the Afikoman! What compelling reason forced the Mishnah to create a new creature at the "Seder" table? Jewish law is very reluctant to create new laws! We are drowning in laws.

The real challenge is to understand the simple dictate of the Mishnah. We seek to find the compelling circumstances that would force our Sages to establish this new Law. Ironically it is the reason you provide the Wise Son the explanation to the Secret of the "Seder."

It is clear that the Mishnah reflects a long period of time, over 200 years, of changing definitions of basic terms, and evolving rituals of practice of the "Seder."

For example, the meaning of the very term AFIKOMAN has two very different denotations:

1. In the Mishnah originally the word AFIKOMAN means the festive celebration after the "Seder" meal where the participants go streaming as in a carnival from house to house, eating, drinking, singing, dancing and rejoicing till the break of dawn.

2. Currently as we commonly speak of the Afikoman, it denotes the piece of matzah that we eat at the end of the "Seder" meal!

And even here, in this setting there are 2 distinct different meanings as to exactly what the "Afikoman" denotes: A piece of lamb meat or a piece of matzah.

1. In the Pre-70 CE period, before the destruction of the 2nd Temple and the Judean State, the item of that was ceremoniously eaten was a piece of PASSOVER LAMB!

2. In the Post-70 CE era, after the establishment of RABBINIC JUDAISM, (before 70 CE there was no Rabbinic Judaism) the item of food to be eaten at the end of the "Seder" was a PIECE OF MATZAH.

And by the way, the reason we have 3 MATZAHS on the "Seder" table is because we needed to set aside A SPECIAL piece of matzah. And so right at the beginning of the "Seder" we perform YAHATZ, we break the middle "special" matzah in two and set aside the bigger part as"Afikoman" to be eaten at the end of the meal. Note well, before 70 CE there were ONLY 2 MATZAHS, just as we have 2 challas on the table at every Shabbat and holiday.

Yet the fundamental purpose of the ruling remains valid and relevant. But no one has an explanation for the compelling reason for legislating the Afikoman except the brilliant scholar Solomon Zeitlin (1892-1976).

From the Mishnah Pesahim 10:8 we learn:

1. Every Seder must have an Afikoman. There can be no Seder without an Afikoman.

2. The Afikoman must be eaten at the end of the Seder meal. There can be no further eating.

There are no convincing explanations as to WHY the AFIKOMAN was added to the "Seder." The most conventional explanation is that the Afikoman was established so that the "taste" of the Paschal lamb should remain in the mouth. The result of this lingering tase is that a person will not transgress a severe Halakhic rule: not to eat again of the Passover lamb in another group. This is a very weak reason to establish the Afikoman in the "Seder" which in turn generated entire oceans of corollary laws that are most puzzling and clearly made up of "whole cloth." Most telling is that nearly every corollary Afikoman law is disputed by as many different opinions as you can generate. In short, only Zeitlin has a compelling explanation. See for yourself - I believe you will agree. The Afikoman was introduced to make life much easier. And the compelling reason, "the Smoking Gun" is found in Exodus 12:22.

According to the simple clear direction of this text, no one who joins a household to observe and partake in the Passover ritual, the first night of the Passover, may leave that house until the break of day. As we can well imagine, this ruling caused great hardships. One had to complete the"Seder" by midnight but could not cross the street to put the children into their own beds. And since families observed Passover together, there were often many young children at the service. Passover became each year a source of great anguish and trepidation. Each family was wondering why can't I put my kids in their own bed, it's only across the street.

This strict explicit ruling, punishable by death, was in practice among Israelites until the 2nd Judean Commonwealth, around 100 BCE. At that time the Judeans had an independent state, Jewish institutions and a collection of extraordinary legal scholars who transformed Judaism (many who are listed in Mishnah Avot in the first chapter). It is this legal Halakhic tradition that prepared the ground for Rabbinic Judaism which came into existence after 70 CE, after the destruction of the 2nd Temple and the demise of the Judean State and its institutions.

To the rescue came the Sages of the Beit Din HaGadol, The Supreme Court in Jerusalem. This institution was established with the victory of the Hasmoneans over the Seleucid armies under the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes IV in 165 BCE. After the Hasmoneans declared an Independent Judean State, they established Jewish institutions among them a Supreme Court called Beit Din HaGadol. This Court legislated many new ruling to make life easier for the ordinary Jew and permit all to practice their traditions with less difficulty. One such ruling applie to the prohibition to leave the "seder" home and allowed parents to take their children, and allow the adults too, and put them to sleep in their own beds.

This is the legal stratagem they used to achieve their purpose. The Sages read the verse in Ex. 12:22 to instruct that only eating was restricted to the house they were in. However, if they completely finished eating then the people wanted to leave, they were certainly free to go home to sleep in their beds. The Sages thus instituted a totally new feature to the "seder" which never existed before! They established a formal conclusion to the "seder" meal - which we call the "afikoman." This new ruling established that every "seder" meal must be formally concluded by eating a piece of the Paschal Lamb and afterwards there must be no further eating. Moreover, there can be no "seder" meal without an "afikoman," a formal conclusion to the meal. Afterwards, when the "seder" was over you may go home. Before the institution of this new feature in the "seder" one had to stay in the house till morning. There was no exception.

The Sages emended, changed the meaning of the verse Ex. 12:22, to read that the prohibition to leave the home until morning applies only to eating in another household. Therefore once you have formally concluded the meal, you may most certainly leave to sleep elsewhere.