Damn!
I would have helped her look.
I would have helped her look.
The Passover holiday which begins
this year on the eve
of Friday, April 22 is a truly magical time.
Jewish families gather together to enjoy a lovely and traditional evening meal
known as a Seder while recounting the ages old story of the very first Passover
which celebrates freedom and features the needless deaths of thousands of
people, including children, at the hands of pestilence, plagues, and the
arbitrary whim of an often tyrannical and brutal Old Testament God.
Looks like somebody got up on the
wrong side of the cloud!
But despite all this, Passover is probably the most fun of all the Jewish
holidays, and one of the traditions that makes it so is the hiding of the
Afikomen.
So, what's it all about, Afikomen?
The Afikomen is half of a piece of matzo which has been broken in two early in the
Seder and set aside to be eaten
as a dessert after the meal. The name "Afikomen" comes from the ancient Hebrew
and means "that which makes a dry and shitty dessert."
The procedure is as follows: The leader of the Seder, known alternately as the
Trebek or the Sajak, takes the middle piece
of matzo out from a stack of three matzos and breaks it in half. Nobody
yells at him for this because the matzo is supposed to be broken, but his wife
may yell at him later about other stuff. (Optional).
The Trebek or the Sajak then wraps the larger piece of matzo in a napkin, teaches it
to answer to the name “Afikomen” and leaves the table to hide the Afikomen
somewhere in the home. This enables the children, who may have become
restless during the Seder, to engage in a little harmless fun ransacking the
house. It also provides the adults the opportunity to talk dirty.
To find the Afikomen, the children will search high and low, over and
under, and to and fro. They may also
search hither and yon, but only if the house is zoned for it. They will empty
cabinets, turn over lamps, and smash fine glassware. They will sack the house
in the same manner as Alaric sacked Rome, and some may even bring in Alaric to
consult.
Here are some great places to hide
the Afikomen:
1) Inside a book, especially if the Kardashians are your Seder guests.
2) Between the living room sofa cushions. Even the most intrepid youngster fears thrusting his or her hands into the change, chapsticks, combs, dentures, and whatever manner of man or beast is already lodged within. Frankly so do I.
3) In the sock drawer, where the socks may educate the Afikomen as to how
to mysteriously vanish and turn up six months later wedged
between the washer and dryer and covered with dust.
4) Under the hood of the car. What Jewish person, adult or child, is ever going to look there?
When at long last one of the
children locates and retrieves the Afikomen, he or presents it to the Trebek or the Sajak and in return
receives a present, traditionally the tidy sum of one dollar.
With the changing times, however, that traditional present has changed. It is now a blender.
There's nothing like the delight in an 8 year old's eyes when he or she snags a four speed Waring blender!
Much as I enjoy the customs of
Passover, there is a tinge of sadness of days of Afikomens gone by. I'm no longer
the child scrambling eagerly through my parents' house seeking the elusive matzo
nor am I any longer the Trebek
or Sajak -- or even the dad ---
seeking the perfect hiding place for the next generation of Afikomens for my
own kids.
So, what's it all about, Afikomen?
It's about memories, family, and tradition. And for most of us, a hell of a lot better and sweeter desert at the end of the Seder than the Afikomen!
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If you liked this post you may also like It's a Miracle!, In Search of Big Eli , and The Year We Built The Sukkah.
If you hated this post, I hope you find yourself crossing the Red Sea, and just as you are almost fully across you hear a thundering voice echoing from on high majestically intoning "looks like you're shit out of luck, dude!"
