Passover Seder

Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover, which lasts for 7 days.  It is conducted on the evening of the 15^th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar¹. 

The Passover Seder is performed with partaking of symbolic foods and drinks, and telling² and discussing the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery.

Matzot

Matzot is an unleavened bread traditionally eaten by Jews during the Passover festival^3,4.  The matzah for Passover seder is made with only flour and water.  Eggs, oil, milk, wine or fruit

juice are not allowed to be added during the making of matzot.  The flour can be of wheat, barley, spelt, rye or oats.  The matzah dough is quickly mixed and rolled, usually within minutes, as dough is considered to begin the leavening process 18 minutes from the time it gets wet, sooner if any other ingredients are added.  As the matzot is being heated, they are pricked with a fork to prevent them from puffing up.  The finished matzah are thus flat, thin with dark spots, hard and crisp when cooled.

There are 2 major forms of matza.  The Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews use harden matzot, while the Yemenites and Iraqi Jews use soft matzot similar of a pita bread. 

Three matzot are place on top of each other.  3 matzot symbolize the 3 castes of Jews : Priest, Levites and Israelites.  They also commemorate the 3 measures of fine flour that Abraham told Sarah to bake when they were visited by the 3 angels. ( Genesis 18 )

The Passover Seder Plate contains 6 symbolic foods, namely maror, chazeret, charoset, karpas, zeroa and beitzah.

  

Maror and Charezet

Maror and Charezet ^3,4 refer to the bitter herbs.  Apparently, in the Jewish Shemot as well as Christian Bible, the ‘bitter herbs’^3,4 was plural and thus interpreted into two different types of bitter vegetables. 

Mishnah listed 5 vegetables that are acceptable as bitter herbs⁶ : 
chazeret - prickly lettuce ( Lactuca serriola ), 
olshin - endive ( Cichorium endivia ), 
tamchah - chervil ( Anthriscus cerefolium), 
charchavinah – snakeroot/sea holly (  ???/Eryngium maritimum ), and 
maror - horseradish ( Armoracia rusticana ).

Due to availability of the vegetables, alternative replacement were used over time : 
curled parsley ( Petroselinum crispum crispum),  
onion ( Allium cepa ),
romaine lettuce ( Lactuca sativa longifolia ), etc

However, not all Jewish have the custom to include a second bitter herbs on the Seder plate.  

Both the maror and charezet symbolize the bitterness of slavery in Egypt.

Charoset

Charoset is a sweet, brown, pebbly paste of fruits and nuts, representing the mortar used by the Jewish slaves in the construction of buildings in Egypt. 

There are many recipes for charoset.  The Ashkenazi Jews use chopped walnuts, apple, cinnamon, honey and sweet wine.  Sephardi Jews use raisins, figs, and date.  Egyptian Jews use dates, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and sweet wine. 

Karpas

Karpas is a vegetable other than bitter herbs, usually : 
parsley ( Petroselinum crispum neopolitanum ), 
celery ( Apium graveolens dulce ) , or 
carrot ( Daucus carota sativus ).   

The vegetable is dipped into salt water ( Askenazi Jews ), vinegar ( Sephardi Jews ) or charoset ( Yemenite Jews ). 

The use of salt water is to symbolize the salty tears that the Hebrews shed in their slavery in Egypt.

Zeroa

Zeroa is a roasted lamb^3,4 shank bone symbolize the outstretched arm of God in delivering the Hebrews from Egypt.  It also symbolize the Korban Pesach⁵  during Passover sacrifice.

Beitzah

Beitzah is a hard-boiled or roasted egg symbolizing the festival sacrifice in the Temple of Jerusalem.  It also to remember the destruction of the Temple by the Romans.

1. Exodus 12:6. “Take care of them (the lamb) until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.”

2. Exodus 13:8.  “On the day tell you son, ‘I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’”

3. Exodus 12:8 & 18.  [Matzah], [Maror]

4. Deuteronomy 16:3&8.  [Matzah], [Maror]

5. Deuteronomy 16:2. [Passover Sacrifice]

6. Mishnah 6. “And the following are vegetables with which a person can fulfill their duty on Pesach: lettuce, endive, chervil, sea-holly and horseradish. The duty is fulfilled whether they are fresh or dried, but not if they have been pickled, stewed or boiled. They may be combined to reach an olive's bulk. A person fulfills their duty with their stalks. [One can use] Demai, the First Tithe from which Terumah has been taken, and the Second Tithe and Dedications which have been redeemed.”

 

Names of YHWH

Jehovah ( Isaiah 42:8 ) is an anglicized representation of Hebrew Yahwah, a vocalization of the Tetragrammaton YHWH, the name of the God of Israel, in Christian Bible.

According to Jewish tradition, God’s divine name is written but not pronounced.  

Jehovah-jireh ( Genesis 22:14 ) was a place in the land of Moriah.  It was the location of the binding of Isaac, where God told Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering.  Abraham named the place after the Lord provide a ram to sacrifice in the place of Isaac. 

The Septuagint translation is ”The Lord hath seen“.  KJV follows this meaning.

NIV render it as ”The Lord will provide“, amplifying the literal meaning along the lines of ’the Lord hath seen‘, and referring to Abraham’s earlier words, : ”God Himself will provide the lamb“ ( Genesis 22:8 )

Jehovah-mekaddeshem ( Exodus 31:13 ) means ”Lord who sanctifies“.   After God redeem Israel from Egypt, God sets Israel separates from the profane. 

NIV translated it as ”I am the Lord, who makes you holy“

Jehovah-nissi ( Exodus 17:15 ) is the name given by Moses to the altar which he built to celebrate the defeat of the Amalekites at Rephidim. 

The Septuagint translators believed the word to be derived from nus (H), meaning ”flee for refuge“ , thus rendered it ”the Lord my Refuge“ ;

while the Vulgate translators thought it to be derived from nasas (H), meaning ” hoist; lift up“, thus rendered it ”Jehovah is my Exaltation“ ;

NIV translated it as ”The Lord is my Banner “

Jehovah-rapha  ( Exodus 15:26 ) means ”Lord our healer“. 

After God delivered Israel from Egypt, Moses led Israel from Red Sea into the Desert of Shur.  When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water as it was bitter.  So the people grumbled against Moses.  After Moses cried out to the Lord, and the lord showed him a piece of wood, which he threw into the water, and the water became fit to drink.  There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction to the Israel to obey God’s commands, so no disease would ever strike them.

NIV translated it as ”I am the Lord, who heals you“

Jehovah-sabaoth ( Amos 4:13 ) is the name Amos called God, meaning ”The Lord of host“ of armies on earth, the stars and the angels.  Implying that Jehovah is the Supreme Ruler.

NIV translated it as ”Lord Almighty“

Jehovah-shammah ( Ezekiel 48:35 ) is the name given to the city in Ezekiel’s vision.  It means ”The Lord is there“

Jehovah-shalom ( Judges 6:24 ) is the name give to the place in Ophrah where Gideon built an alter, after he saw an angle of the Lord face to face.  The Lord assigned Gideon to deliver Israel from the hand of the Midianites, which Gideon accepted with much doubts. 

It means ”The Lord is peace“

Moses-in-the-Cradle = Tradescantia spathacea

Moses-in-the-Cradle is Tradescantia spathacea.  It is once popularly known as Rhoeo discolor, then renamed and reclassified under genus Tradescantia, yet remained in the family Commelinaceae.  Other synonyms includes : R. spathacea, T. bicolor.

The name of the genus honors the English naturalists John Tradescant the Elder ( ca. 1570s -1638 ) and John Tradescant the Younger ( 1608 – 1662 ).  The obsolete genus name, Rhoeo, was named after a mythical Greek goddess.

Moses-in-the-Cradle also known as Moses-in-a-boat, boatlily, oyster plant, and many other names in many languages and dialects.

Moses-in-the-Cradle is a herbaceous plant originated from South American rainforest.  The leaves are long, sword-shaped, green on top with violet underneath, capable to grow up to 12 feet in length.  The small white 3-petaled flowers are hidden in the boat-shaped purple bracts nestle in the leaf axiles, thus getting its name "Mosses in the cradle".

It is planted as an ornamental.  In some places, it becomes noxious weed as it is easily sprout from broken rhizomes.  In Mexico, it is widely used in traditional medicine.  The Chinese, although just recently encountered it, also recognized its medical properties.

 

Biblical Narrative

Exodus 1

 1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5 The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.

 6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

 8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us.10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

 11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

 15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

 19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”

 20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

 22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

Exodus 2

1 Now a man ( Amram (Exodus 6:20) ) of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman ( Jochebed (Exodus 6:20) ), 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister ( Miriam (Exodus15:20) ) stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

 8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

Bribe : what say you ?

爱我的人说:

不可受贿赂;因为贿赂能叫明眼人变瞎了,又能颠倒义人的话。( 出23:8 ）

Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent. ( Exodus 23:8 )

爱自己的人说:

看情形咯!

It depends !