Page 14 - RMBA Upper School Haggadah 2018

Why Do We Do Yachatz? - Jonnie Katz (7th Grade)
O en mes we find ourselves in what seems to be hopeless situa ons. In those mes we don’t
know what to do other than to give up. We can learn how to handle these situa ons in a
healthier way by asking the ques on, “Why do we do Yachatz?” We find it is key to always have
hope and have faith that we will make it to the light.
Matzah represents 2 things: on one hand it is lechem oni (ha lachma anya), as Rashi says in his
commentary on Masechet Pesachim 115b. At the same me Matzah is bread of redemp on
according to the Sefat Emet. By understanding Matzah perhaps we can understand why we
break it. In Pesachim 115b, it says that we break the Matzah because it is poor man's bread, and
it represents how a poor man can only have broken pieces. But the Maharal in Gevurot Hashem
51 says how we break the Matzah before we say Maggid, the story of our redemp on. Breaking
Matzah is supposed to represent our redemp on. Albert Katz believes that Matzah is broken to
represent the two sides of matzah: on one hand it is lechem oni while it is also our redemp on
bread. We keep the smaller, broken piece at our table while we discuss our slavery at the table.
But the special part of the matzah is the big piece, the afikoman. The small piece represents the
exile, poor man’s bread. The afikoman represents the food of redemp on. That is part of the
reason we hide the afikoman. We don’t always see where it is coming from, but we must know
it will come. We end the seder night with the afikoman as our bread. Although we start with the
small, broken poor man’s piece, at the end of the night the final taste in our mouths is
redemp on.
Even when you’re in a tough place or going through tough mes, you should always try to find
the posi vity, the light in those mes. Don’t ever give up. Just like during Yachatz you start with
poor man's bread, but you eventually get to redemp on. That is, only if you never gave up.
The Broken Matzah - Jake Teller (9th Grade)
We conduct the Yachatz sec on of our Pesach seder using three matzahs, two whole matzahs
and one broken matzah But we must ask the ques on, what does the broken matzah truly
symbolize?
In addi on to providing us with the Afikomen that we use later in the seder, the broken matzah
serves the purpose of symbolizing the holiness of pairing brokenness with wholeness. We can
only perform the seder using the broken and whole matzahs together, meaning without both of
them, Yachatz would not exist.
Another place where we see brokenness and wholeness together, is in the holy Aron used in the
mishkan. In Masechet Bava Batra, a Brayta states that, in addi on to the whole tablets, “the
broken pieces [of the first tablets] were [also] stored in the Ark.” Even one of the holiest places
in Jewish history cannot truly be whole without having something broken inside of it.

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