Adapted from: Haggadah with Stories by Rabbi Nachman Seltzer

The minhag of children “stealing” the afikoman is one of the best-known traditions of Klal Yisrael. The Gemara in Pesachim (109a) writes, “We snatch the matzos on the night of Passover in order to keep the children awake.”

This line from Pesachim indicates the possibility that the practice of “stealing the afikoman,” may have already been around in the time of the Gemara. It seems possible that even back then, the head of the household would break the middle matzah, put one part back in its place, then put the other one down so that the children could find it. (In some households the leader of the Seder hides it away, and the children have to find it. Slightly different method, but same idea: keep the kids engaged an interested — and awake!)

We all know the drill. It’s a lot of fun — but what’s the point of the minhag? Why the whole setup to enable the children to hide away the afikoman when their father isn’t looking?

Throughout the Seder, we do all kinds of things to prompt our children to ask questions. And the more the child asks, the better. Basically, allowing the children to “grab” the afikoman and hide it away is a play to ensure that they stay awake and focused on everything happening at the Seder table.

But everything we do at the Seder also has a deeper significance. There must be something else going on here. Rav Avigdor Miller quotes the Dubner Maggid and explains what we are actually accomplishing here.

The Dubner Maggid says that the custom of breaking the middle matzah, and putting away the larger half to eat later as the afikoman, represents the efforts we should be making in this world to put away as much reward as we can for Olam HaBa. This is actually what the word tzafun implies — that what we put away is “concealed” for the World to Come.

Says the Dubner Maggid: “The head of the household works so hard to provide his family with everything they need. And after making sure that everyone has what they need for Pesach (and the rest of the year), he should find himself thinking, What about me? I need to put away something for myself for the next world…”

In essence, the many demands of this world try to “grab” the matzah that the leader of the Seder is putting away for the World to Come.

Rav Avigdor Miller adds that one of the reasons that the children are taught to “grab” the afikoman at the Seder is to remind us of what happens over the course of the year — how we are enslaved by the society in which we live, a society that keeps us focused on our material needs and wants and distracts us from spiritual pursuits. The “stealing” of the afikoman reminds us that we need to “grab” time for ourselves, to devote our time to spiritual activities, putting away at least part of our resources for the Next World.

In light of this, we can offer yet another understanding of this minhag.

Maybe the reason we tell our children to “grab” the afikoman is not just to keep them awake, but for ourselves as well. The more the children are involved in the Seder, the more we become absorbed in our role of passing the tradition on to the next generation. By virtue of the fact that the children are engaged in what’s happening at the Seder, they are helping us remain focused on our role.

There are times in life when we do things because we want to help our children, and then, after thinking about it, we realize that we benefited ourselves as well. True, they are the ones who are supposed to ask the questions, but at the end of the day, it’s the questions that they ask and that we answer that helps us understand the story of the Haggadah on a much deeper level.