Hide the Matzah, Find Jesus

I grew up in a conservative Jewish home—Friday night synagogue, and all the Jewish holidays faithfully observed.

Passover was one of my favorite holidays. I loved everything about it—the matzah (unleavened bread), the charoset, the Manischewitz, watching to see if Elijah’s cup had gone down, and asking the Four Questions—a role I proudly held as the youngest.

But by far, the most anticipated part of the Seder—the Passover meal—was the game: Hide the Matzah.

For my Jewish readers—you’re already smiling. You know.

For everyone else—let me explain the tradition.

During the Seder, the middle piece of matzah is taken out and broken in half. One half—called the afikomen—is wrapped in a cloth and hidden. Later, the kids search for it. Whoever finds it usually gets a prize. In my family, it was money. *Matzah is unleavened bread.

My grandfather led the Seder, which meant he was also the one who hid the afikomen.

One Seder stands out more than all the others.

I think I was about five or so—my two siblings and two cousins searched and searched, but no one could find it. I’m pretty sure my grandfather was quite proud of his hiding abilities.

And then, I looked up.

Above the dining table, tucked into the arms of the chandelier, was the neatly folded cloth with the afikomen hidden inside.

I screamed, “I found it!”

My grandfather had a smile a mile wide. As the youngest of five grandchildren, I liked to believe I had a special claim to it - as his favorite.

Fast forward to 2020…

At this point, I’m all in on Team Jesus.

Somewhere along the way, I came across One for Israel—a ministry in Israel sharing the Gospel.  Seriously??

Then I started listening to Messianic rabbis teaching about Jesus being prophesied in the Old Testament.

Wait… what?? Jesus is in my book?

Okay, so now this Jewish girl’s head is spinning.

Growing up Jewish, I thought we had our book… and they—the Christians—had theirs. I had no idea Christians even read the Old Testament.

And here’s what I heard about Jesus:

He went against the Jews.He said he was the Messiah—which meant he was meshugeneh (Yiddish for a crazy person). Clearly, he’s not the Messiah.

End of story.

…or so I thought.

Because now I was discovering something completely different—that there are prophecies in the Old Testament pointing to Jesus. (I’ll explore more of those in future posts.)

But for now—back to Hide the Matzah.

As I began to learn about Passover through a Messianic lens, something shifted.

Jesus isn’t just in my book. He’s at my Seder.

Oh—and no one ever mentions that the Last Supper was actually Jesus celebrating Passover. Oy!

And it gets even better—Jesus is actually at the center of the Passover story: the sacrificial lamb whose blood was placed on the doorposts so the angel of the Lord would “pass over” the homes in Egypt, sparing the firstborn.

And then… in my favorite part of the Seder—Hide the Matzah—there He is again.

You see…During the Seder, there are three pieces of matzah. The middle piece is taken out and broken in half.

One half is wrapped in a white cloth and hidden (buried).

And then—at the end of the meal—the children search for it and find it. It’s brought back (resurrected).

I had loved this Passover tradition… and as a Jewish kid this connection would have never even been on my radar.

The matzah is:

Broken.

Wrapped.

Hidden.

Brought back.

And… have you seen matzah? It’s striped, with little holes—some say “pierced.”

Sound familiar?

As I began to learn about Passover through a Messianic lens, I couldn’t ignore it. The parallels were right there.

Hide the Matzah is much more than just a game.

The very thing we were hiding, searching for, and bringing back… was meant to represent the sacrifice of the lamb.

Jesus.

It is a sweet memory of my Jewish upbringing—and now I see it was pointing to something much deeper… my Jewish Messiah.

Oy vey… who knew?