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| Janusz Korczaks's creative solution was to make a very special afikomen by asking kitchen staff to hide a hazelnut in one of the matzo balls in the chicken soup that was served to all the children on that day. The child that found it was given a prize. Of course, all the matzo balls were immediately eaten and the soup was left to be eaten at the end. |
Szlomo Nadel, one of the children in the Korczaks Orphanage told me that one of his favorite memories was from Passover. He thinks it was Pesach in the year 1933 or 1934. The festive Pesach meal with the reading of Hagadah would be held in the dining room. During the Pesach, it is a custom that a child in the family is searching and thereafter brings Afikoman to the adults at the Pesach table. But with more than 100 children, Korczak had to find an innovative way to have them search for the “afikoman, The afikoman is usually the half of the middle matzah that was hidden away to be eaten at the conclusion of the Seder meal and the hidden piece of matzo redeemed for a prize by the child who finds it.
Korczaks creative solution was to make a very special afikomen by asking kitchen staff to hide a hazelnut in one of the matzo balls in the chicken soup that was served to all the children on that day. The child that found it was given a prize. Of course, all the matzo balls were immediately eaten and the soup was left to be eaten at the end.
Normally, as we approach the end of the Seder within the family, when we come to the section Tzafun (Hidden) in which we find and eat the afikoman. The implication is that the afikoman represents something inaccessible, something not available to us in our everyday lives—complete and ultimate freedom, true redemption. So by eating afikoman we finally act out the repair of our broken world.
This is actually the secret of the Afikoman ritual. Of course the children, the next generation is to be trusted and therefore are asked to find the afikoman, the missing part of the matzo as only the children can taste the future.
