[Avodah] Preferred form of maror

[Micha Berger]

RSMontagu wrote:
> I was nodding along here until I came to the last sentence. Was horseradish
not > known in ancient times? What is chazeret?

Chazeres is lettuce, probably prickly lettuce (I've never seen the breed) in
particular. Horseradish was used as maror in the Pale of Settlement because
green vegetables are scarce there that time of year.

Some even raise questions about whether one is yotzei with horseradish.

Last time around (or maybe the time before that), R' Noach Witty pointed to an
article in Gesher 5741 by Arthur Schaffer, a botanist. He argued that
horseradish (from mare redditch, sea radish, via mare -> mare) is sharp, not
bitter.

Also, R' Herschel Schachter wanted to know how you do koreich with something
that doesn't bend. But he assumes that Hillel's matzah was cracker type, and
thus the leaf must be wrapped around the matzah. However, it is possible to
wrap a soft matzah around meat spiced with ground horseradish.

(The other botanical perennial around Pesach time is whether oats are really
one of the 5 minim and usable for matzah.)

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter