CURRENT TALMUD PASSAGE
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Posted March 12, 2009, by Rabbi Judy Abrams. Please refer to
Maqom's home page for information about previous passages.
BH
YOUR SEDER AND THE YERUSHALMI
© Judith Z. Abrams, 2009
You already know at least one Yerushalmi for your seder: the
story of the four sons (Y. Pesachim 10:4//Mekhilta Bo 18). Let¹s
add some more for you in time for you to use at your seder!
Mishnah Pesachim 10:3 talks about the
bitter herbs (or lettuce) and charoset. There is a revealing bit
in the Yerushalmi regarding the reality of these two items:
Merchants of Jerusalem used to say:
Come and take the spices of the commandment!
Isi's wife said in her husband's name:
And why is the charoset called dokhah (i.e. pounded)? Because
the charoset is pounded with bitter herbs.
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said: It needs
to be thick.
This implies that the charoset is a
rememberance of the mud.
There are those who teach: It needs
to be soft. This implies that the charoset is a rememberance
of the blood (of the 10th plague and/or the blood on the doorposts
that protected the Israelites from that plague). (Y. Pesachim
10:3)
Discussion Questions:
- I love that we get a bit of a view on what is one of the
most salient features of Passover (for me, at least): the hawking
of wares for the seder meal. Our local grocery store gave over
a huge space for Passover goods two weeks before Purim. It fills
me with guilt and dread each time I enter as it reminds me of
all the cleaning and cooking that will come. These grocers have
ancient roots (no pun intended) apparently. Both in Jerusalem
and in Lod (T. Pesachim 10:10), merchants were hocking these
spices. Why do you think it is this cry that both Tosefta and
the Yerushalmi remember? Is it because the merchants were saying
that the spices were a commandment? If so, need they be referring
to bitter herbs (which are commanded in the Torah) or could they
be referring to the spices needed for the charoset? Is it either/or
or both? On a more visceral level, I'm interested to know if
anyone shares my sense of dread when seeing all those Passover
goods in the grocery store. Please tell me! There seems to be
a great deal of confusion about who Issi is (see B. Pesachim
at the bottom of 113b) and all the more so about his wife. It
certainly seems that she knows what her charoset has: something
pounded and bitter herbs. Will you, perhaps, make some "Issi's
wife charoset" this year made with bitter herbs? Let me
know.