[Avodah] From Galut to Geulah

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 11:14:55AM -0400, cantorwolberg at cox.net wrote:
: We dip the maror into the charoses to commemorate the bitterness of
: the exile into the sweetness of Redemption.

I had a problem when trying to share my own epiphany about charoses.

Side-topic, my proposed chiddush:

There is a basic paradox WRT charoses, as all contemporary qehillos
(that I know of) are accustomed to making it today: It is supposed to
look like mortar, but OTOH, it is supposed to be sweet.

So which does it symbolize? The servitude that came with having to use
mortar, or the sweetness of redemption?

I suggested that it represents "ana avda deQBH". It seems from the outside
like servitude. As the rasha says (I picture his question is rhetorical),
"Mah ha'avodah hazos lakhem?" But "ta'amu ure'u ki tov Hashem" -- once
you try it and "taste" it, you can sense its sweetness.

My problem, which is also a problem with the idea Cantor Wolberg was
taken by how eloquently it was presented, is that charoses was not
orignally sweet.

The maqor for charoses is Pesachim 116a.

The zeikher letit is shitas R' Yochanan. R' Levi says it's zekher
latapuach, the apple (?) trees under which BY's women gave birth, hiding
from the Mitzriim. Since there were no apples in Mitzrayim at the time,
tapuach must mean something else. R' Tam translates it esrog. But in any
case... The Y-mi Pesachim 10:3 says zeikher ladam. And a beraisa has a
different version of R' Yochanan -- zekher lateven.

Rashi ends up with apples and wine to give it a sharp taste, with other
ingredients added to thicken it. The Rashbam also speaks of a sharp
taste. The Ran says apples and vinegar for the taste, ground vegetables
to thicken (maybe a tevan reference?). Tosafos tell you to then thin it
at the meal with more wine or vinegar. The Mordekhai, citing the Arukh,
goes in a different direction -- that charoses should contain all types
of tastes -- sweet, sour and bitter -- just as the clay was a mixture.

So, charoses wasn't always historically sweet, and even vinegar was
used to insure this. Which means something changed, and I was wondering
what.


What my brain came up with in response to CRW's post...

Wild prickly lettuce, the original chasah used for maror, had a kapa
worm problem. The first reason given is that charoses removes the qapa
(115a-b, R' Papa, 116a R' Ami). Tosafos ad loc appear to be saying that
we already checked the lettus, the issue isn't kashrus. It's a chemical
left behind by the qapa which is piquach nefesh, and therefore we are
more chamur and require acid in order to neutralize one of its components.

So I was thinking that what shifted was the cultivation of lettuce.

The last source I found to mention this functional explanation is Rabbeinu
Chananel (990-1053, Tunisia). The Rambam (1135-1204) says zeikher
letit, and this quickly takes over. The Rambam lived a century later
than Rabbeinu Chananel, and in more urbane locations. Of the sources we
already mentioned, the Ran was 990-1062, Rashi was 1040-1105, and while
the Rashbam lived a little later, overlapping the Rambam (1085-1158),
Troyes in the dark ages wasn't likely to be as horticulturally advanced.
The Ran was 990-1062.

Charoses originally sweetened the lettuce by containing acid -- even
though acids themselves are tart. Once our lettuce no longer needed
fixing, we shifted to having charoses which itself is sweet rather than
vinegary. When the the functional explanation whithered, people focused
on the commemorative shitah, which has some reason for using vinegar
(the things commemorated were mostly sad ones), but not enough to sustain
the recipe in the face of the notion of "fixing" or "sweetening".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The mind is a wonderful organ
micha at aishdas.org        for justifying decisions
http://www.aishdas.org   the heart already reached.
Fax: (270) 514-1507