On Pesach, before we can begin to tell the story of yetziat mitzrayim, we perform Yahatz by breaking the middle of our three matzot in two. Pesachim 115b-116a outlines the rationale for this practice: lehem oni, or poor man’s bread, is always broken. This is either because whole loaves are more expensive, whereas broken loaves can be sold to the poor for less, or because a poor person always breaks their loaf into small portions in order to save some for later.
On Pesach, our matza is both the bread of liberation and the bread of poverty and servitude. Yahatz marks the beginning of Maggid, with lechem oni and a focus on our servitude. Our matza is also lechem she’onim alav dvarim harbe – bread that inspires conversation.
The word Yahatz appears in Breishit when Jacob divides his camp into two:
וַיִּירָ֧א יַעֲקֹ֛ב מְאֹ֖ד וַיֵּ֣צֶר ל֑וֹ וַיַּ֜חַץ אֶת־הָעָ֣ם אֲשֶׁר־אִתּ֗וֹ וְאֶת־הַצֹּ֧אן וְאֶת־הַבָּקָ֛ר וְהַגְּמַלִּ֖ים לִשְׁנֵ֥י מַחֲנֽוֹת׃
“Jacob was greatly frightened; in his anxiety, he divided the people with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps.” (Genesis 32:9)
His rationale for this move is explained: “If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, the other camp may yet escape.” Splitting the camps is a profound expression of Jacob’s vulnerability and brokenness. One can only imagine how painful it is for him to barter one half of one’s family for the other.
Luckily, he discovers that Esau can be won over, and his camps are reunited in safety. The division of yahatz can be rewoven into whole cloth again. Instead of yahatz, we can read yahad shivtei yisrael! The tribes of Israel, Jacob’s children, are sewn together. The feeling that we need to sacrifice one half of who we are in order to retain the other is a state of brokenness.
The work of the seder is to undo the work of Yahatz. We aspire for wholeness, to overcome internal and communal fractures. We try to move from g’nut, shame and brokenness, to shevach, a place of joy where we recognize and praise our Creator for our redemption.
The aspiration for wholeness, the overcoming of the fractures, internal and communal are the work of the seder. I wish all of us a holiday of repair, of sewing the disparate fragments of our lives into whole cloth, of wholeness, and of peace.
Rabbi Steve Greenberg