The big thing this Shabbat is the Desserts. We have six desserts in this year’s Bakeoff to taste, enjoy and vote for your favorite.
It’s two weeks to Passover. So here’s a dessert question about Passover. Why is Afikoman Matzah called Dessert? How does Matzah qualify as a dessert? Desserts are sweet, moist, refreshing. Matzah!? The Haggadah itself gives us the answer. Dessert is the taste that lingers, the taste that lasts. It may not be sweet or moist but Matzah is the taste we want to keep and hold onto after the Passover Seder.
This brings us to a story that happened this week in Israel. Look inside your table-card to see a picture of Zecharia Baumel. He was an Israeli soldier that was missing or killed in 1982 during the first Lebanon War. His family waited to bury their son. But his body was held by the enemy and never returned.
37 years later, Israel did not forget Zecharia Baumel. Thanks to some help from the Russians in Syria and a secret IDF operation titled “Bittersweet Song” Israel recovered his remains and he was buried by his family in Israel. This was big news in Israel.
One of the interesting things on Israeli news was that he was found with his Tzitzit! 37 years dead in enemy territory, and when they find him he still has his Tzitzit!
What does this have to do with the Afikoman and Dessert? It’s about what lingers, what lasts, what stays with you 37 years later. Let’s think of the meaningful things we want to keep with us, like Zecharia Baumel’s Tzitzit that will linger and last and be our Afikoman for years and years to come.