Tzafun

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The text was updated on 2022.26.10.

TZAFUN (CAFUN) (Hebraic צפון) – the name of the eleventh part of the Seder Meal.

During the Jewish Passover (see: Passover), the leader of the liturgical assembly takes care to ensure that the celebration runs strictly according to the order (in Hebrew: Seder). For this purpose, he uses a particular book: “The Passover Haggadah.” “The Passover Haggadah” contains fourteen main parts to be accomplished sequentially. One of these parts is “TZAFUN (CAFUN)” – HIDDEN. What is its meaning?


To answer this question, one ought to perceive that:


While one accomplishes the eleventh part of the Seder Meal – Tzafun – one eats a special unleavened Afikoman.

What is the meaning of Afikoman in Seder?

The correct etymology of Afikoman is very important to understand its meaning in Seder.

Contrary to the commonly accepted opinion among scientists, it is not the Greek words that build the word Afikoman. The meaning of Afikoman is easily perceptible in its Hebrew inscription. But where can one find this Hebrew term? The answer is as follows: One can find it within the framework of the 5th part of Seder, at the moment when the leader has to explain all the laws and orders of the celebrated liturgy. The issue with which he has to finish the presentation is the prohibition of eating after consuming paschal Afikoman. One can read this prohibition in Mishna, where, in the order Moed in the tractate Pesahim, the tenth and final chapter discusses the order of the Passover seder; for Afikoman, see X.8. Here we have the Hebrew term Afikoman – אֲפִיקוֹםָן. When presented without these vocalic signs, which were added to Hebrew texts by Masoretes about the 6th century after Christ, it has the following form: אפיקומן. Because there is no word with such consonants in dictionaries of Hebrew, we can suppose that it is a word formed as the composition of two or more commonly known Hebrew words. Penetrating research showed that it is so indeed.

So we have the meaning of Afikoman, perceived in its Hebrew inscription:

The meaning of Afikoman is the clearest in the background of the history of Exodus:

Conclusion

Now it is possible for us to link each of Seder’s separate parts to the corresponding Exodus stage. Thus, the eating of Afikoman in the Seder supper’s eleventh part (Tzafun) means: It is during this very eating that the participants of Passover participate in the passage under the leadership of God with their fathers between the two halves of the divided Sea of Reeds.

The last remark

When the Passover participants eat Afikoman, God makes them participants of the Exodus way, i.e., He moves them to the way leading from the place of the consumption of the lamb in Egypt to the location of the singing hymn in the Lord’s honor on the second shore of the Sea of Reeds. However, He chiefly moves them into this way’s part, which is on the bare bottom of the Sea of Reeds, in front of Baal-Zephon. It is consistent with the correct etymology of two names: the word Afikoman and the eleventh part of the Seder Meal (Tzafun).

See also

External links

References

Wojciech Kosek, Pierwotny ryt Paschy w świetle schematu literackiego Księgi Wyjścia 1-18, Publisher: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Papieskiej Akademii Teologicznej, 2008, ss. 440, 9788374381598 and [1]