In this Pesach sermon, Rabbi Adrian M. Schell reflects on a deeply personal and poignant Seder night in Berlin, where a table of rabbinical students, each carrying their own stories and silences, unknowingly held the broken pieces of our collective Jewish memory—and helped one another carry them.
Using the powerful symbol of the Afikoman, Rabbi Schell explores how the broken middle matzah we hide and redeem mirrors our Jewish experience: fractured by trauma, held in memory, and ultimately returned to the table as a sign of resilience and hope.
This is a message about survival that doesn’t come easily, about healing that happens at shared tables, and about teaching the next generation not just to find the hidden matzah, but to understand what it means to live with brokenness and still search for redemption.
In a time when the weight of our past—ancient and recent—feels particularly near, this sermon invites us to embrace the truth that we are all Afikoman: carried, cherished, and ultimately brought back whole.
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