[Avodah] Afikomon

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 08:08:18PM -0600, Sacks, Avram wrote:
: Greco/Roman culture and given new meaning.  Reclining?  Well, that is
: how the citizens of Greece had their feasts, reclining on sofas.  It is
: not a stretch to imagine that the matzah that was  eaten as the dessert
: so that its taste lingered was given a name borrowed from the Greeks and
: used to connote "after meal entertainment." 

Perhaps as a general rule, but the argument that afiqoman is an instance
is not that strong, IMHO. There is a din to leave the taste of the
qorban in your mouth. This turns the qorban, or its zikaron, into a
desert. Particularly if my understanding is correct that people just ate
a kezayis of qorban pesach, eaten al hasova. So, the notion of having
a desert predates the Greek, and the Greek would appear to just be a
useful term from the empire -- much like calling the beis din hagadol
"Sanhedrin".

I knew about tying afikoman to the Aramaic "afiqu mina", that the
afiqoman is the middle matzah which was earlier "removed from them". Also,
the Chaldian "afiku man" -- dish remover -- ie desert. That said, the
Greek epikomion is also an oft-cited etymology (Tosafos R' Aqiva Eiger;
Tif'eres Yisrael, Yachin, #51). According to R' Pinechas Kehati, the only
real one -- the others being notrikon. And while the Greek literally
translates to simple "that which comes after", I just learned that in
practice it referred to entertainment after the meal, not food.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Brains to the lazy
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