YACHATZ: The Art of Breaking

Ms. Ilana Wilner

If I could add a fifth question to the Ma Nishtana I would add, “On all other nights and holidays we eat from whole challot , but tonight it is our custom to break a matzah.” Yachatz, the ritual of breaking one of the matzot, has always troubled me. Why does it need its own ceremony? How does this ceremony add to the Seder experience? Aside, of course, from all the questions it’s causing me to ask!

The Talmud (Pesachim) tells us that we must break the matzah because it is lechem oni, bread of my affliction, or poor man’s bread, as a poor man normally will eat a piece and save the rest for later. But I think there’s a greater symbolism and meaning behind the breaking of the matzah, reflecting the two other major “breakings” in our rituals and tradition: the breaking of the glass at the wedding and Moshe’s breaking the Luchot.

The first breaking, at one’s biggest simcha, a wedding, reminds us that we are in galut and that our Beit Hamikdash was destroyed. We commemorate it by breaking the glass under the chuppah. On someone’s happiest day, we take a moment to remember that we, as a people, have caused the Beit Hamikdash to be destroyed, and that we have not merited it to be rebuilt.

The second breaking occurred thousands of years ago. After the Jewish People sinned with the golden calf, Moshe broke the Luchot. The Torah says " asher shibarta ": which you shattered. Resh Lakish (Talmud Shabbat 87a), interprets this to mean that Hashem said, " Yasher Koach Sheshibarta ," thanking and congratulating Moshe for breaking the Tablets.

Why all this breaking? Why do we commemorate the Beit Hamikdash with breaking the glass? I think there is a deeper meaning and symbolism to brokenness in our tradition. Broken doesn’t mean failure or irreparable. It means it’s time to rethink, reexamine, and reshift our perspective. When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and broke Hashem’s trust, they didn’t destroy the relationship; there needed to be a shift in perspective on both parties knowing they are no longer in a state of perfection. Similarly, the broken glass and the broken Luchot don’t symbolize our failures and sins. Rather, they force us to rethink our growth. Moreover, the broken Luchot were kept in the Ark alongside the new set. The broken Luchot were kept as a constant reminder that we are not perfect. We make mistakes and we learn from them.

I believe the same is true with Yachatz. We break the middle matzah in two unequal sizes. We put the bigger piece aside for afikoman and we take the smaller piece and hold it up and recite “ Ha Lachma Anya” (this is the bread of my affliction). Right now, the matzah is lechem oni , our slavery, hardships and failures. However, just like the Luchot, we take our broken piece and keep it with us throughout the night to represent our redemption, our Afikoman. The act of breaking the matzah prepares us for that shift in perspective -from a slave mentality to that of kings and queens.

Throughout Pesach, matzah serves as two dichotomous symbols. On the one hand, matzah is lechem oni, bread of our affliction and on the other hand matzah represents our freedom, since we left Mitzrayim in such a hurry there was no time to wait for the dough to rise, so our bread became matzah. This dichotomy is the meaning of Yachatz and Pesach: We are in control of our choices. It is our job to shift the perspective of the seder from gnai, negative, to shevach, positive. It is up to us to turn our shortcomings into greatness, our slavery to our freedom.