[Avodah] Preferred form of maror

[Zev Sero]

Simon Montagu wrote:
> On 2/21/07, Zev Sero <zev at sero.name> wrote:
>>  Ivrit makes stuff up all the time; it also borrows
>> words from earlier forms of Hebrew, and uses them for completely
>> different purposes, especially for concepts that didn't exist in
>> earlier times, and so couldn't possibly have had words.  Or did you
>> think that Yechezkel knew about electricity?  Or that "chazeret",
>> the preferred form of maror, is horseradish?
> 
> I was nodding along here until I came to the last sentence. Was
> horseradish not known in ancient times? What is chazeret?

Lettuce.  I have no idea why Ivrit uses the word for horseradish,
but chazeret as used by Jews everywhere, when they are not speaking
Ivrit, is lettuce.  The chazeret on the bottom of the seder plate
(in the Ari's configuration) is lettuce.  I used to get very confused
when reading Ivrit references to chazeret, until someone explained
that it meant horseradish.

Horseradish is traditionally supposed to be tamcha, which is one
of the other four kinds, which are acceptable but not preferred.
AIUI, those who've looked into such things (are you here R Ari Z?)
have concluded that that tradition is wrong, and horseradish actually
isn't one of the five kinds at all.  That's as may be.  But nobody
has ever supposed it to be chazeret.  Unless they're learning from
an Ivrit dictionary instead of from the Shulchan Aruch.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas