Thoughts to hold in mind while eating the Passover Afikoman.

1. ‫בס"ד‬
Tsafun—Afikoman
Pesach 5773 / 2013
Sarah Yehudit Schneider
he 12th step in our seder is called Tsafun—meaning hidden or secret. It follows the festive meal
and marks the time for “dessert” which, at the seder, means our last portion of matzah, called
the Afikoman. Really, the dessert should be the Paschal lamb—the sacrificial centerpiece of our
evening’s ritual, but without the Temple there is no way to truly sanctify the lamb’s slaughter so we
substitute matzah instead.
In the original Passover (in Egypt) we needed to start eating the lamb by midnight and to finish
by dawn. 1 The rabbis subsequently added a fence. They ruled that from Temple times onward a
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korban Pesach must be finished by midnight. There are a range of opinions about whether we should
also eat our Afikoman by then. Some say yes, and some rule that other factors take precedence. All
agree that at the very least, the first portion of matzah and maror (stage 8 & 9 of the seder) should be
completed by midnight.
Nevertheless, at whatever point you do eat your Afikoman (whether before, during, or after
midnight) that moment becomes for you “like midnight” (‫ ,2 )כַּ חֲ צֹת הַ לַּיְ לָה‬for you are reenacting the
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first korban Pesach eaten in Egypt around 3325 years ago.
The drama of that event is nearly impossible to convey. Huge upheavals ripped through the
cosmos on both its inner and outer planes. Forces converged to produce a paradigm shift that brought
heaven down to earth with all the sweetness and anguish that entails. Below are three perspectives on
that event which can serve as kavvanot for eating the Afikoman.
1 – Pshat. The Torah paints the scene as follows: The Israelites divided into groups that gathered in a
single home and shared the same Paschal lamb. As evening approached they slaughtered their lambs
and (as per instruction) smeared its blood on their doorposts and lintels, an ominous sight that lent an
air of foreboding to their preparations. They roasted the entire lamb in one piece (stripped of its skin)
arranged in a fetal position (‫ 3 .)רֹאשׁו עַ ל-כְּ רעָ יו וְ עַ ל-ק ְרבּו‬All this despite the Egyptians’ worship of the
ֹ ִ ָ ֹ 2F
lamb as one of their gods.
At dusk each group gathered in the home where it would eat its korbon. Once the sun set, no
one was permitted to exit that space until daybreak under threat of death. 4 They began their seuda,
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saving the Paschal lamb for dessert. The blood on the lintel dampened the atmosphere. And then, at
midnight, while eating their korban pesach, chaos erupted outside their blood-stained doorways.
Screams and cries filled the streets. Every Egyptian household bewailed its dead. The Torah does not
exaggerate when it states that there never was and never will be a cry of anguish that compares to
this. 5 All the while the Israelites stayed locked in their homes, hearing the shrieks, gazing upon their
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bloodied doorways, eating their korban Pesach, the god of Egypt. 6 5F
2 – Seder night was the conception and shevii shel pesach was the birth. 7 The Israelites in 6F
Egypt were like a fetus in its mother’s womb. 8 7F
Kenesset Yisrael (the mystical Body of Israel) was conceived by Avraham and Sarah, floated
through the fallopian tube with Yitzchak and Rivka and implanted in the dark womb of Egypt when
Yaakov descended there with his clan of seventy souls. They gestated “like a fetus in utero” for
210 years and then, on seder night, they prepared for birth. The contractions had begun nine
This Pesach teaching is lovingly dedicated to the complete and speedy healing of Robert ben Leah (ben Noah).
His spirit should stay strong and his body should repel all that impairs his well-being.
This Pesach teaching is further dedicated to the aliyat haneshama of Natan ben Feygah. His soul should rejoice in
the bounty of good deeds that are shared with the world by his beloved offspring.
All rights reserved. © 2013, A Still Small Voice – Correspondence Teachings in Classic Jewish Wisdom.

2. -2-
months earlier with the first plague, but on seder night they crowned (a medical term that
describes the child’s head as it first appears to the outside world in the birth canal). 9
According to kabbala the third (and highest) level of soul, called neshama, enters the child at
the point of crowning. 10 The nefesh takes root at conception (when the sperm and egg ignite with
life), the ruach at forty days, and the neshama only at birth.
Yet if we define conception as the point when a soul first comingles with a body, then there
is a conception of sorts when the child crowns, for the neshama first makes contact with its fleshy
self at that time. That child will spend the rest of its days integrating the profusion of lights that
comprise its holy neshama. So though we usually think of conception as preceding birth by nine
months that is only partially true. A second conception occurs after forty days (when the ruach
enters) and a third conception transpires at the very end, when the neshama drops into the body at
the point of crowning—at the start of birth.
And this applies equally to our collective self that “crowned” on seder night and was delivered
seven days later, as we passed through the sea (our cosmic birth canal). Kenesset Yisrael was born
on the other side—a people charged with holding, embodying and modeling Hashem to the
world—the same task given to Adam over 2000 years earlier in Gan Eden. 11
The second Afikoman kavvana then is to conjure the experience in your mind’s eye: At
midnight, while eating our korban Pesach, in the midst of the scene described above, our collective
neshama made contact with our crown and we were jolted into messianic consciousness. The
Targum Yerushalami employs metaphor to convey this altered state:
“…I carried you on clouds as if on eagles' wings…I transported you to the Holy Temple [on high] where you
fulfilled the ritual of korban Pesach…and then I brought you back the very same night…. 12
Obviously the Temple did not exist on the physical plane and our fleshy bodies did not
actually travel to Jerusalem. The Targum is describing a prophetic episode. The heavens opened
and the people were drawn “in” and “up” to the chamber of vision (where the sof maaseh
b’machshava techila 13 resides), the place called crown. 14 There they ate their first korban Pesach with
the enlightened consciousness we will attain in our fully rectified golden age. And so, when eating
our Afikoman, we too should follow our soul thread “in” and “up” to the chamber of vision and
imagine ourselves fulfilling this mitzvah basking in the radiance of Divine Presence, when
“knowledge of G-d covers the earth like a sea fills the ocean bed.” 15
This is the reason that our Birkhat HaMazon on seder night includes a line recited only once a
year at this ritual meal (immediately after eating our Afikoman):
May the Merciful One bequeath to us the day that is only good—the eternal day—the day when the
Righteous will sit with crowns on their heads, enjoying the light of Divine Presence. May our lot be with
theirs! 16
3 –R. Eliezer says the world was created in the month of Tishrey [on Rosh HaShana]. R. Yoshua
disagrees. He says the world was created in the month of Nissan [on Pesach]. (TB RH 11a). The Ari
(R. Isaac Luria) resolves the dispute by clarifying that in Tishrey the thought of creation arose in
the mind of God while on Nissan it was embodied as a physical entity. [Ari, Shaar HaKavvanot, RH drush
1].
This last section is not really a kavvana but conveys instead the larger context within which these
first two kavanot emerge. Tishrey, says R. Luria, is when the thought of creation arose in the mind
This Pesach teaching is lovingly dedicated to the complete and speedy healing of Robert ben Leah (ben Noah).
His spirit should stay strong and his body should repel all that impairs his well-being.
This Pesach teaching is further dedicated to the aliyat haneshama of Natan ben Feygah. His soul should rejoice in
the bounty of good deeds that are shared with the world by his beloved offspring.
All rights reserved. © 2013, A Still Small Voice – Correspondence Teachings in Classic Jewish Wisdom.

3. -3-
of G-d which is actually more like conception than birth. (‫ 71 .)היום הרת עולם‬This Tishrey creation,
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in the mind of God (so to speak), is the one depicted in the first chapters of Genesis and, according
to Kabbala, it unfolded in the world of Briyah (which is the mental plane). 18 The lowest level of 17F
Edenic reality—the bodies of that paradisiacal world—are thus best characterized as thought
forms.
Corporeality only came into being after Adam’s eating from the Tree of Knowledge. 19 Reality 18F
shattered and tumbled level after level before collapsing into the configuration that we now
experience as the physical plane. Down here, every sliver of soul has an opaque skin or shell that
marks it out from every other producing the illusion of multiplicity.
Yet it is not only the appearance of things that coarsened but also the rhythm and units of
time. We (in the world of Asiyah) live at a completely different pace than the world of Briyah. The
entire history of our cosmos (from its big bang to its end-of-days) occurs within a single hour of
creation time (maybe even a rega). 20 The long-awaited messianic era will culminate in our return
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to Eden as a fully rectified (and reconstituted) Adam who unites the entirety of creation into a
single harmonious whole (just like the original Adam did back then). 21 And when we get there we
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will be shocked to discover that an almost insignificant amount of time has elapsed by Briyah’s
clock. The world will just be transiting into the Seventh Day or cosmic Shabbat and we will arrive
just in time (our absence hardly noticed).
The last thing to appear in the Genesis odyssey (or Tishrey scenario) was Adam, a creature
distinguished by its capacity to know the oneness of G-d on the deepest possible level (called the
50th Gate of Understanding). Adam is not synonymous with Homo sapiens. That same sequence
recurred down here below when Edenic reality reconfigured on the physical plane (in Olam
HaAsiyah) and Adam again marked the finale.
The point at which this cosmic Adam reappeared down here below was seder night when
Kenesset Yisrael crowned and integrated its neshama. In that moment the world acquired its
potential to grasp Divine oneness at the 50th Gate of Understanding. The vision that arose in the
Mind-of-God (in Tishrey) was now fully embodied on the physical plane. All the pieces were in
place though it would still take millennia for Adam (with its newly integrated neshama) to find its
way back to the Garden that was its starting point…and then to move beyond.
That paradigm shift of consciousness, the birth of Kenesset Yisrael—the Shekhina embodied—
released a tsunami of lights that swept through the universe on that momentous night. Now one
would expect those heavenly lights to produce pure joy, but the truth is apparently more
complicated.
There is a curious association between intense revelations of Divine Presence and the forces
of indiscriminate destruction. And so, in preparation for this first Pesach HaShem tells Moshe: “I
will pass through the land of Egypt”…The Haggada elaborates: “I, and not an angel...I, and not a
seraph…I, and not a messenger.” Yet the verse goes on to explain that this special “visit” to the
earthly plane will produce the tenth plague for the Egyptians. And even for the Israelites, instead
of basking in the Presence, they are confined to their homes under threat of death and are even
forbidden from peaking. 22 Rashi explains:
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When the Destroyer receives permission to injure, he does not distinguish between righteous and wicked. 23 2F
This Pesach teaching is lovingly dedicated to the complete and speedy healing of Robert ben Leah (ben Noah).
His spirit should stay strong and his body should repel all that impairs his well-being.
This Pesach teaching is further dedicated to the aliyat haneshama of Natan ben Feygah. His soul should rejoice in
the bounty of good deeds that are shared with the world by his beloved offspring.
All rights reserved. © 2013, A Still Small Voice – Correspondence Teachings in Classic Jewish Wisdom.

4. -4-
The Midrash connects this with a very different (but surprisingly similar) incident when (after
securing forgiveness for the Golden Calf) Moshe asks to see HaShem’s glory.
HaShem responds: “I will make all my goodness pass before you…but no man can see my face and live… I
will place you in a crack on the mountain and while my glory passes by I will cover you with my hand. And
when I have passed by, I will remove my hand and you shall see my back. But my face shall not be seen. 24
Rashi presents a very surprising explanation for why Moshe must hide in a crack covered by the
“hand” of G-d, while His goodness (‫ )כל טובי‬passes by:
HaShem spoke to Moshe: “There is a place prepared by Me for your needs, where I shall hide you so that
you will not be harmed” 25… My attribute of goodness will pass by the mountain and you will hide (‫ )צפון‬in
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the cave 26"…From here we learn that permission was given to the destroyers to destroy. 27
25 F 26 F
And the word Rashi picks to describe Moshe’s hideaway is the very same term employed by
the Haggada to mark the point in our seder when we eat the Afikoman—the 12th step that is called
Tsafun. 28 The Targum translates “HaShem’s protective hand” in the verse above as “HaShem’s
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protective word (‫ .”)מימר‬It is possible that the Israelites were also protected by HaShem’s word—
His command to sacrifice the Paschal lamb and their fulfillment of it.
The birth of Kenesset Yisrael that occurred at midnight on Pesach eve unleashed a watershed
of Presence that smote and enlightened. It struck the firstborns of Egypt and enlightened the
Israelites who (like Moshe in the mountain’s cleft) hid in their homes, did not look out, and
experienced the revelation as an inner prophetic vision (described by the Targum above).
We learn from this that the proper response to an intense revelation of Presence is to go in
and up with closed eyes and experience the revelation from within, 29 as we also see from Moshe’s 28F
instincts at the burning bush when he “turned away [from the bush] to see it [with his inner eye]
(‫…03 )סר לראות‬and Moshe hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God.” 31
29F 30F
As we eat the Afikoman we re-access that moment of intense revelation when HaShem
“passed through Egypt”—He and not a messenger—and the Israelites, inside their homes, eating
their korban Pesach 32 were catapaulted into a collective devekut that we can also taste at this
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moment if we close our eyes and direct our attention inward and upward as we eat our Afikomen.
May it be that on this Pesach night as we pull down a new level of neshama that holds all the
wisdom and lessons that we will integrate this coming year, let us go in and up to the chamber of
vision and eat our Afikoman there. And may our faith become so energized that we bring the
world on board (for it really is a win-win all around) and may we reconstitute our collective Adam
and bring mashiach now.
1
Rashi on Ex.12:10. And implied by the midrash Ex.R 15:5. And the Shem MiShmuel brings the Yerushalmi that apparently translates the gezera
sheva of halayla (by the korban and by the maka—Ex. 12:8 and 12:12) as “at chatzot” instead of “by chatzot” like the Bavli (Pesachim120b;
Zevachim 56b) .
2
Ex. 11:4.
3
R. Isaac Luria (Ari), Taamei Hamitzvot, Parshat Bo.
4
Ex. 12:22.
5
Ex. 11:16. One can only wonder whether the Torah really does mean that even the pogroms and holocaust do not compare to the cry of this
night. I have never heard anyone discuss the question.
6
Ex.R 17:5.
7
Haggada of R. Tsadok HaKohen, Mavo, ot 41. Which cites Ari, Pri Eitz Chayim, Shaar Hamitzvot.
8
‫ספר ליקוטי אמרים - אות טז , שוחר טוב ק"ז‬
9
Shaar HaKavanot, p. 108, amud 1,2,3.
10
I know that I read this, I believe in the Rashash, but I do not have time to track down the exact source.
This Pesach teaching is lovingly dedicated to the complete and speedy healing of Robert ben Leah (ben Noah).
His spirit should stay strong and his body should repel all that impairs his well-being.
This Pesach teaching is further dedicated to the aliyat haneshama of Natan ben Feygah. His soul should rejoice in
the bounty of good deeds that are shared with the world by his beloved offspring.
All rights reserved. © 2013, A Still Small Voice – Correspondence Teachings in Classic Jewish Wisdom.

5. -5-
Although Judaism identifies five primary levels of soul (nefesh, ruach, neshama, chaya, yechida) only the lowest three are actually
internalized, while the upper two (chaya and yechida) exert a more surrounding influence on the individual.
According to Jewish law, up until crowning, if the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life, the child is sacrificed for the mother’s welfare,
since the child (with its ruach) is a lower level of life than the mother (who possesses a neshama). But once the child crowns, its neshama enters
and the two are now of equal rank and neither can be scuttled for the other’s sake.
11
TB Kritot, 6b; Lev.R 5:3.
12
Targum Pseudo Yonatan Ex. 19:4: ‫אתון חמיתון מה די עבדית למצראי וטענית יתכון על עננין הי כעל גדפי נשרין מן פילוסין ואובילית יתכון לאתר בית‬
‫מוקדשא למעבד תמן פיסחא ובההוא לילייא אתיבית יתכון לפילוסין ומתמן קריבית יתכון לאולפן אורייתי‬
13
“The final outcome was the original thought [or vision of creation].” From L’cha Dodi, Shabbat Liturgy.
14
“And it was when Izhak was old and his eyes were darkened from seeing,--because when his father was binding him he had seen the Throne
of Glory, and from that time his eyes had begun to darken,--that he called Esau his elder son, on the fourteenth of Nisan, and said to him, My
son, behold, this night they on high praise the Lord of the world, and the treasures of the dew (‫ )ואוצרי טלין‬are opened in it …” Targum
Yonatan, Gen. 27:1. In the system of kabbalistic correspondences, the chamber of dew is in the partzufim of keter (crown). See Ramak, Pardes
Rimonim, chapt. 23, or ‫.טל‬
15
Isaiah 11:9; See Rambam, Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Melachim 12:5.
16
Haggada of Pesach, Blessing after Meal.
17
R. Tsadok HaKohen on RH.
18
Zohar III, Kedoshim 83a; R. S. Elyashev, HaDrush Olam Hatohu, II, p. 16, 79.
19
BR 22:9.
20
See Evolutionary Creationism, Sarah Yehudit Schneider, 2005 (A Still Small Voice).
21
TB Chagiga 12a. “Adam (the first human) spanned from heaven to earth and one end of the world to the other.”
22
Zohar 1:63a.
23
Rashi on Ex. 12:22.
24
Ex. 33:19-23.
25
Rashi on Ex. 23:21.
26
Rashi on Ex. 33:19 (“And I will cause to pass…). Some versions of Rashi have ‫ נתון במערה‬instead of ‫.צפון במערה‬
27
Rashi on Ex 23:22 (“And I will cover with My hand…”).
28
As noted in endnote 26, some versions of Rashi are different.
29
I am not aware of any other access road to the Bet HaMikdash shel Maala except by going in and up.
30
TB Brochot 7a; Ari, Shaar HaPosukim, Shmot (below):
‫שער הפסוקים - פרשת שמות‬
...‫ואומרו וירא ה' כי סר לראות, ולא אמר כי נקרב לראות...וירא ה' כי סר לראות, שעלה אל הדעת הנקרא סר‬
‫מהרש"א על שבת דף סז/א‬
‫לראות בעין שכלו ירא ה' כי *סר‬
31
Ex. 3:4-6
32
Ex. 17:5
This Pesach teaching is lovingly dedicated to the complete and speedy healing of Robert ben Leah (ben Noah).
His spirit should stay strong and his body should repel all that impairs his well-being.
This Pesach teaching is further dedicated to the aliyat haneshama of Natan ben Feygah. His soul should rejoice in
the bounty of good deeds that are shared with the world by his beloved offspring.
All rights reserved. © 2013, A Still Small Voice – Correspondence Teachings in Classic Jewish Wisdom.