(At each home, a leader uncovers a plate of three matzah and breaks the middle into two pieces)

Leader:

This matzah is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. All who are hungry, come and eat. All who are needy, come and celebrate Passover with us. Now we are slaves. Next year may we all be free.

Participant: We break the matzah as a symbol that our freedom is incomplete: none of us is truly free as long as there is suffering in the world. This year, we think of those who lives have been split asunder. We think of those who are sick; those who are quarantined and cannot visit their loved ones, those who have died without family present or without funerals.  We think of the ways all of our lives have been split apart this year.

Dr. Martin Luther King teaches us: “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality” 

We wrap and set aside the larger piece of matzah: this is the afikomen.


haggadah Section: Yachatz