The Torah of Rochelle Zell
Lessons on Order, Disorder, and Reorder Benjy Forester, CJHS 2012
In my 2nd year Talmud class with Dr. Schorsch, we learned a Mishnah from Massechet Pesachim, the tractate all about Passover, that made absolutely no sense to me. I think that this year, I’m finally starting to understand it. Here is that Mishnah (Mishnah Pesachim 10:3) — count how many questions YOU have after reading these short few lines!
hardly intelligible! I want to do something very counter-intuitive, especially given the meaning of ‘seder’, which is to recommend that we read this text backwards in order to decode its mysteries.
Our starting point (4) is that during the time of the Temple, the Passover sacrifice was a core ritual element of ,הביאו לפניו the Passover holiday experience. While all biblical hol.מטבל בחזרת שמגיע עד לפרפרת הפת idays had sacrificial components, Passover was unique , הביאו לפניו מצה וחזרת וחרסת ושני תבשילין in that its sacrifice played a narrative role. It commem.אף–על–פי שאין חרסת מצוה orates the initial Passover sacrifice made by our ances. מצוה:רבי אלעזר )בן( צדוק אומר tors, whose blood was used to demarcate Jewish homes and avert the Angel of Death’s fatal kiss during the Exo.ובמקדש היו מביאין לפניו גופו של פסח dus story. The book of Exodus itself imagines the timeless role of this commemoration, offering a script for ג׳:משנה פסחים י׳ parents whose children ask about its meaning in future generations (Exodus 12:26-27). In a post-Temple world, Here is my best translation as a third year rabbinical how might this core ritual, whose presence hearkens to student, which probably is not much better than what I the actual experience of fleeing Egypt, be replaced or came up with over 10 years ago: replicated?
1. Something is brought before someone 2. This person dips with the chazeret until they reach the parperet hapat 3. Matzah, chazeret, charoset, and two cooked dishes are brought before that person a. Even though charoset isn’t a mitzvah b. Rabbi Eliezer ben Tzadok says it is a mitzvah 4. And when there was a Temple, they would bring before that person the body of the Paschal lamb
If you’re willing to join me in suspending our knowledge of how seders work today, and how our haggadot translate some of these funky words for us, we are left with a very confusing outline for what is supposed to happen at our seder. And since seder means order, we are in deep trouble if our rabbinic instruction manual is 4
That question looms large as we move one step forwards, or in our case backwards. A debate emerges about whether charoset is a mitzvah (3a-b). Read the Exodus story and look for a mention of charoset. Try the whole Bible! You won’t find anything, because this Mishnah is the first appearance of the word in Jewish literature! The rabbis seem to have some understanding that it ought to be served and serve a ritual function, but they are torn about its true significance. Next, we have a series of items that are to be presented at the seder (2-3). Commentary and scholarship helps teach us that this list combines foods ordained Biblically by God with munchies from a typical Greco-Roman menu. While taking a Jewish history class at WashU with CJLS Co-Chair Pamela Barmash, I remember her remarking that charoset was just the Tannaim’s version of guacamole! With the aforementioned confusion about what happens without a Passover sacrifice (1), and what the status is of the new ritual foods that become integrated in the telling of the story (3a-b), it isn’t so surprising that we’re left with (2-3) the ancient version of holy guacamole — popular food imbued with
