54 | MARCH 30 • 2023 

N

ear the beginning of 
the seder at your house, 
if you have a child 
in attendance, the child asks 
questions. That makes sense. 
According to the Torah, you tell 
the story of the Exodus “when 
your children ask” (Exodus 
12:26). 
 According to the Mishnah, if 
the child does not know enough 
to ask, then the father prompts 
curiosity by observing “How dif-
ferent is this night from all other 
nights” (Pesahim 10:4). 
Those prompts appear in the 
Haggadah as four scripted ques-
tions, one about matzah, one 
about bitter herbs (maror), one 
about reclining and one about 
dipping. Asking about matzah 
and bitter herbs makes sense, as 
the Torah commands us to eat 
the Paschal meat with matzah 
and bitter herbs (Exodus 12:8). 
What about reclining and 
about double dipping? The Torah 
does not mention either one. So, 
how did they get into the seder? 
We know about reclining. 
Maimonides explains that reclin-
ing expresses freedom (Laws of 
Leavened and Unleavened Bread 
7:7). In their description of a 

typical banquet, ancient rabbis 
explain that the guests recline on 
couches (Tosefta Berakhot 4:8). 
The servers then bring a low 
table with food for each guest. 
This description matches Greek 
descriptions of banquets. 
The word “recline” includes 
the Greek word for couch, klinai. 
The guests reclining at a Greek 
“symposium” (literally “drinking 
together”) were men of the upper 
classes; the entertainers might 
include female and male dancers, 
musicians or comedians. 
 At our seder, the men must 
recline and all the important 
women, too. Rabbi Moshe 
Isserles rules that “all our women 
are considered important” (Orah 
Hayyim 472:4). We recline to 
demonstrate we are not slaves, 
but free men and women. 
Today’s seder looks a lot like 
the Greek symposium, but we do 
without the comedian (Greek: 
komikos). Maybe the Mishnah 
means “no comedians” by the 
mysterious “we do not have 
Afikomen after the Paschal meal” 
(Pesahim 10:8). 
When the guests first arrive, 
they receive a cup of wine and 
some hors d’
oeuvres (Greeks, 

Romans and rabbis agree) — 
hors d’
oeuvres such as vegetables, 
fish or capons, each with a sauce. 
At the seder, we dip twice: the 
vegetable karpas (parsley) in salt 
water or vinegar, and the bitter 
herb maror in charoset. 
Some Sephardi recipes for 
charoset seem just like Roman 
sweet-and-sour fruit sauces. Don 
Yitzhak Abarbanel, who served 
Spanish and Portuguese royalty 
in the 15th century, explains:
“On this night we must dip 
twice,
” and this demonstrates 
that we are noble and princes 
and the leaders of people, since 
we eat our food improved by 
dipping sauces, for this is the 
delight of princes.
The Mishnah reads: “On all 
other nights, we dip once; on 
this night, twice” (Pesahim 10:4). 
 
 
Our Haggadah has: “On all other 
nights, we do not even dip once.
” 
According to the Talmud, Rav 
Safra, a Babylonian rabbi of the 
early 4th century, instituted the 
change because we do not dip. 
Maybe rabbis in Israel under 
Roman rule began their fanciest 
meals by dipping a delicacy in 
sauce, and Babylonian rabbis 
under Sassanian Persian rulers 
did not. 
Rav Safra himself, however, 
frequently traveled to Israel, 
which perhaps undercuts this 
speculation. 

All Will Be Revealed

Dipping 
parsley in 
salt water is 
a longtime 
Passover 
tradition.

Finding the roots of dipping and reclining 
traditions on Pesach. 

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Trader Joe’s Matzah

JTA 
For millennia, Jews have 
eaten matzah. And for years, 
Jewish patrons of Trader Joe’s 
have been able to purchase 
matzah off the shelves of the 
tiki-themed grocery chain — 
which has gained its own qua-
si-religious following.
 Now, for the first time ever, 
Trader Joe’s will be selling 
matzah under its own famous 
private label.
The grocery chain, with 
more than 500 stores nation-
wide, has gained a cult-like 
following in its 56 years of 
operation, including no small 
number of Jews who keep 
kosher. The store stocks a 
number of Jewish, Israeli and 
Middle Eastern foods — from 
an “everything but the bagel” 
spice mix to spicy zhoug sauce 
to kosher-certified turkeys 
ahead of Thanksgiving and 
frozen latkes. 
Some shoppers said they 
were excited about the new 
offering, while others won-
dered whether it would be 
any different from the matzah 
Trader Joe’s has sold in previ-
ous years. Still others said that 
by putting its name on one of 
the most quintessential Jewish 
foods, Trader Joe’s “signals that 
Pesach products have gone 
mainstream,” in the words 
of Susan Robinson, a mem-
ber of Kosher Trader Joe’s, a 
Facebook group with more 
than 63,000 members. 

PASSOVER

