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 15th 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 festival3,4. 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 lamb3,4 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.”
