We take out the middlematzah, break it in half and hide the broken piece for theAfikomen. According to the Maharil,¹⁰ we should set aside the larger piece of the broken matzah for the *Afikomen.*The broken middle matzah is an allusion to the fact that the night of the Passover was divided into two parts. It was during the first half of the night that God helped Abraham overcome the five kings who took Lot captive, and it was during the second half of the night that God performed the miracle of the Passover, striking down the first born. In the wilderness Moses called the altar that he built Adonai Nisi, God is my miracle is a reminder of the miracle in Egypt. This implies that we too must perform some act as a reminder of the miracle of the tenth plague; we don’t take the upper or the lower matzahbut the middle one as a reminder of miracles in the time of Abraham and Moses. We hide away the Afikomen as an allusion to the Midrash on “It was for the Lord a night of watching.” (Exodus 12:42) This means that it is set aside for watching until the final redemption which will also take place on Passover. The Shach¹¹ also explains it this way; the night of Passover is divided into two parts – the first half for the miracles with which Israel was redeemed from Egypt and the second half for the future redemption. We hide the Afikomen for the future redemption. The broken matzah, then, is allusion to both sets of miracles: Abraham and Moses, and the past and future redemptions. We can now understand why the Maharil said that the Afikomenmust be a larger piece of matzah. The sage taught that after the final redemption, the exodus from Egypt will become secondary while the final redemption will become essential – the Afikomenis larger for this reason. The piece of matzahremaining on the Seder plate is an allusion to the Exodus; it is smaller since in the time of the final redemption the Exodus will be of less importance as well.

footnotes: ¹⁰ Jacob ben Moses Mölln, Rabbi and teacher of Mayence; born about 1365; died in 1427. ¹¹ Shach - Rav Shabbtai ben Meir HaKohein was born in 1623 in Vilna.