From Authenticity in the Kitchen: proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2005, ed. R Hosking (Totnes, 2006, peer-reviewed) pp.414-426 Haroset Susan Weingarten Haroset is a food with symbolic significance, which is used at the Jewish Passover Seder meal. From biblical times Passover was celebrated in Jerusalem by eating the paschal lamb together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70CE, the Passover rituals were recreated in a new way, as the Seder. This meal commemorates the exodus of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt to freedom, and has been widely celebrated by Jews in their homes up to the present day. The Seder ritual which includes reading a text, the Haggadah, pointing to and eating symbolic foods, and drinking four cups of wine. Among the symbolic foods eaten at the Seder are the ‘bitter herbs,’ to remind the participants of the bitterness of slavery. These were originally some form of endives or bitter lettuce, common in Palestine in the spring. Once the Jewish diaspora spread north, grated horseradish was often substituted for the bitter lettuce.1 Haroset was made to dip the bitter herbs into, and take away some of their bitterness. It was said to resemble the mud or clay for the bricks which the Jews made as slaves in Egypt. 2 As a child I learned the ingredients of haroset: Apples, raisins Chopped up fine Cinnamon, nuts And sweet red wine.3 This is the present-day authentic Ashkenazi haroset, but there are many variations which developed over the centuries, particularly in Sephardi communities.4 Indeed, in practice today and throughout history there is no one ingredient which is common to all versions of haroset, although we can point to the geographical distribution of certain ingredients. The Talmudic sources From the very first time the Jewish legal codes were written down we find detailed discussions of the rituals of Passover, which get a whole section to themselves in the thirdcentury Mishnah, as well as in the subsequent Palestinian or Jerusalem Talmud [JT] and the Babylonian Talmud [BT]: Pesahim, the Passover laws. 5 The earliest written evidence of haroset is to be found in the Mishnah. However, this only describes haroset in terms of its function and symbolism, not its ingredients or taste. They bring before [the leader of the Seder] unleavened bread [matzah] and lettuce and the haroset, although haroset is not a religious obligation. R El‘azer b Zadoq says: It is a religious obligation. 6 Thus the Mishnah mentions the matzah, the bitter herbs and haroset as belonging to the Seder ritual ‘even though haroset is not a religious obligation,’ merely, it is implied, a custom. However it then quotes the contrary view of Rabbi El‘azar b Zadoq, a rabbi who lived before the destruction of the Temple, who says that haroset is a religious obligation. Rabbi El‘azar was a spice merchant in Jerusalem, and other sources quote him as saying that merchants would cry the spices for haroset in the streets of Jerusalem, where Jews would come on Passover to eat the paschal lamb in the days when the Temple still stood. 7 Thus the evidence for the use of haroset is now put back to a time before 70CE, and it is clear that it is older than the new form of the Passover Seder meal. Rabbi El‘azar, then, saw spices as an essential ingredient. The Mishnah adds: On all other nights we dip our food once, on this night we dip twice.8 The Mishnah is alluding here to the usual practice all over the Roman empire of dipping bread into a condiment at a meal. But at the Seder, it says, we dip twice – referring to an initial dipping of ordinary herbs into salt water and the later dipping of the bitter herbs in haroset. 9 However, there is no discussion of what haroset is. Both the Talmuds expand the Mishnaic discussion of haroset. The Jerusalem Talmud: haroset as dukkeh The fifth-century JT notes that haroset is called ‘dukkeh’ because it is pounded [dukhah].10 Yemenite Jews, who were cut off for many years from the mainstream Jewish community, relied on the JT as their religious authority unlike other Jews, for the Babylonian Talmud did not reach them for many hundreds of years. They have preserved the tradition of the JT and to this day they call haroset ‘dukkeh.’ The JT goes on to quote Rabbi Joshua b Levi, a thirdcentury Palestinian rabbi, as saying that haroset must be thick like mud or clay, while others say it should be liquid, ‘in memory of the blood.’ Blood from the Passover lamb was used by the Jews to mark their houses before they left Egypt. They dipped bunches of hyssop into the blood and painted it on the lintels of their houses as a sign for the Destroying Angel to pass over them and spare their children. The mention of blood may also refer to the first of the ten plagues in the book of Exodus, when all the water in Egypt was turned to blood. 11 It is also clear from the JT that it was usual to put spices in haroset. However, there is no mention of other ingredients. In the Babylonian Talmud, finalised in the seventh century, Rabbi Ammi claims that haroset is used as a dip for the bitter herbs to counteract the harmful kappa they contain.12 (It is unclear what kappa is – unhealthy juices or some form of worm are the alternatives proposed by mediaeval commentators.) Other rabbis, however, saw symbolic meaning in the haroset. Thus Rabbi Yohanan thinks that haroset is a memory of the clay for the bricks which the Jews made as slaves in Egypt. We have already seen that the JT also presents haroset as a memory of the clay. Rabbi Levi suggests that haroset preserves a memory of the apple-tree in the biblical book, the Song of Songs (8.5): Under the apple-tree I aroused you; there your mother conceived you, there she who bore you conceived you. Although Rabbi Levi does not actually say that apples should be included in the haroset, it is clear that for him apples are closely connected to haroset through the Song of Songs. These two rabbis are both Palestinian, so the BT here may be reporting a debate which actually took place in Palestine, but was not preserved in Palestinian sources. What is to be done with these differing opinions? The BT carries on to cite Abbaye, a fourth-century Babylonian rabbi, who succeeds in reconciling them, and writes that haroset must be made both acrid and thick: acrid like apples and thick like clay. But note that here too apples are not quite presented as an ingredient: they have become a taste-memory. The BT reports that the rabbis decided the debate in favour of Rabbi Yohanan. Thus haroset is to be seen as a memory of the clay, rather than the apples. Rabbi Yohanan is then quoted again, saying that the spices in the haroset are in memory of the straw used for making bricks, while the haroset itself is in memory of the clay. 13 Thus the BT associates haroset with apples, but rejects the view that this is the major association, and does not actually speak of apples as an ingredient. It says that the important thing is that haroset should be thick like clay (but may be acrid too), and that spices should be added. We shall see that later rabbinical commentators relate back to what is written in the Mishnah and the BT, and some of them also relate to the JT as well. 14 Formatted: Indent: First line: 1.27 cm The Song of Songs The Song of Songs, attributed to King Solomon, is a series of love-songs which include some of the most beautiful descriptions of the coming of spring in the Land of Israel. It is read in synagogue on Passover, the spring festival. Songs mentions many fruits and spices, as well as wine, milk and finest oil. The fruits appear both growing on the trees, and as ready to be eaten. Thus there are vineyards and blossoming vines, green figs on the fig tree, an orchard of pomegranates in bloom, gardens of luscious fruits and nut-trees. The lover arouses his beloved ‘under the apple tree,’ where her mother conceived her. Fruits ready to eat include raisin cakes and clusters of grapes, fragrant apples, pomegranates split open or giving their juice. There is date honey, and the lover compares his beloved to a date palm, with its clusters her breasts, and says he will ‘climb the date palm.’ Many spices and perfumes adorn the lover and his beloved: nard, myrrh, henna, frankincense, saffron, sweet calamus and cinnamon ‘with all aromatic woods’ – indeed ‘all the choice perfumes.’ Accepting Songs into the Bible (not without much debate), the rabbis interpreted this love-poetry allegorically, as representing the love of God for the Jewish people. Thus in the midrashim, rabbinic exegesis on Songs, the Jewish people is associated allegorically with a number of fruits: with pomegranates, grapes, figs, nuts and apples. We shall take just one example, that of the apple-tree. In the midrash on the book of Exodus, which tells the story of the first Passover and how God saved the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, the apple-tree is intimately woven into the biblical Exodus narrative by the writers of the midrash, using the verse from Songs (8.5): Under the apple tree I aroused you, and expanding on it. The Egyptian authorities had declared that all male Jewish babies were to be killed. Midrash Exodus Rabbah tells the legend of how they were saved: Israel was delivered from Egypt because of the righteous women who lived in that generation. What did they do? When they went to draw water, God arranged that little fishes should enter their pitchers, with the result that they found them halffilled with water and half with fishes. These they carried to their husbands and then set two pots on the fire, one for hot water and the other for the fish. Then they fed them, washed them, anointed them, gave them to drink and slept with them….As soon as they had conceived they returned to their homes and when the time of childbirth arrived they went out into the fields and gave birth beneath the apple-tree, as it is said: Under the apple-tree I aroused you; there your mother conceived you. God then sent down an angel, who washed and beautified the babies like a midwife…He also provided them with oil and honey to suck….15 The apple-tree, then, became intimately associated with the Passover narrative, and in particular with God’s mercy, and this is why Rabbi Levi and later rabbis relate the haroset to the Song of Songs. The Babylonian Ge’onim Following these talmudic sources, later rabbis dealing with the laws of Passover mention ingredients, and sometimes taste, in their discussions of haroset. We shall trace these discussions throughout the ages in different Jewish communities. The first sources belong to Babylonia, which was to become part of the Sephardi diaspora. Following the closure of the BT, leadership of Babylonian Jewry was taken over by rabbis called ge’onim. Among the first of these was Amram Ga‘on (d. 875), who headed the Jewish academy at Sura.16 He writes: They bring before him [sc. the leader of the Seder] haroset – haliqa – which they make in our part of the world from dates. It is clear from this information about dates that R. Amram is noting a local custom – and perhaps implicitly differentiating himself from other customs, or from the talmudic minority view of Rabbi Levi that haroset is a memory of apples. Rav Amram also notes another name for haroset: ‘haliqa.’ Jews from Iraq still today call their haroset ‘haliq’ or ‘haliqa,’ and it too is deliciously sweet. Sa‘adiah Gaon (882-942), who headed the Babylonian academy at Pumbedita, wrote a commentary on the Passover haggadah. He says: You must prepare a sauce of dates, nuts and sesame and knead them together with vinegar. He too says this is called haliq. To this day Jews from Babylonia make their haroset from dates, nuts and sesame. Sa’adiah was so influential that he appears to have authorised his local custom as authentic. He was presumably relying on the opinion of Rabbi Yohanan that clay, rather than apples, is the most important haroset symbol, a view which we saw was accepted by the BT. In other words, what was important was the consistency, rather than the ingredients. However, he does also say the haroset should include vinegar, so it will have some acidity, which the BT says is in memory of the apples. Sephardi tradition of the Middle Ages Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (called RaMbaM after his initials, or Maimonides), perhaps the greatest of all rabbinical commentators, was born in Cordoba in Spain in 1135 but fled to North Africa – first Fez, then Cairo. Early in his life Rambam wrote an influential commentary on the Mishnah.17 Here he gives us a recipe: Haroset is a mixture which has in it acidity and something like straw in memory of the clay. We make it like this: soak figs or dates and cook them and pound them [dukkin] till they get soft, knead them with vinegar, and put in spikenard or thyme or hyssop without grinding them.18 Rambam has added some new ingredients to haroset – figs, as well as the dates of the ge‘onim, and thyme and hyssop as alternatives for spices. We saw above that hyssop was used by the Israelites in Egypt to mark their doorposts with blood, so that the Destroying Angel would pass over them. Rambam has included this memory in his haroset, perhaps because the JT says that haroset is in memory of the blood, although he does not actually say so. His haroset is cooked, and he specifies that the spice or herbs are not to be ground up, so that they will be like pieces of straw. Years later, when Rambam came to write his Code of Laws, he gives a different recipe: 19 And how do you make haroset? You take dates or dried figs, or raisins or something similar, tread on them and put vinegar in them, and spice them with spice like clay with straw, and bring it to the table on Passover eve. Rambam thus clearly accepts the view of Rabbi Yohanan in the BT who says that haroset is in memory of the clay, but not the view of Rabbi Levi who says it is in memory of the apple. He does, however, appear to accept the compromise of Abbaye who says that haroset should be like clay in consistency and like apples in acidity – in the Commentary on the Mishnah he actually says haroset must be acidic, and while he does not mention acidity in the Code, he does specify that haroset should be made with vinegar. We saw that the Babylonian Ge‘onim said their local custom was to use dates. Rambam also uses dates, but he adds some new ingredients. In his Commentary to the Mishnah he added figs. In the later Code, written in Egypt, he specifies dates, dried figs and raisins ‘or something similar.’ If it is the consistency which is important, then the ingredients can be varied according to what is available. This is true for the spices too – he no longer specifies anything in particular. What is important is that they should be like straw in clay. The combination of sweet fruits with vinegar will have given a sweet-sour haroset. The border between Ashkenaz and Sepharad? Italy and Provence Italy Rabbi Zedekiah b Avraham Anav lived in Rome. In his thirteenth-century commentary on the Passover haggadah 20 he quotes both Sephardi and Ashkenazi authorities, but unfortunately does not specify his source for haroset. Rabbi Zedekiah says there must be yeraqot, herbs or vegetables, in his haroset, and adds an ingredient I have found nowhere else, ‘blossoms from trees’ – perhaps because not very many fresh fruits would be available in the Northern Italian spring. Maybe he is thinking of the blossoming trees in Songs, although he does not say so. He stresses the acidity of haroset (in memory of the apple), identifying it with a contemporary acidic food and giving it the vernacular name of aigros from the French aigres – an acidic fruit or vegetable. 21 Modern scholars have pointed out that sour tastes were popular in mediaeval Europe.22 ‘Sour apples’ are given as an example of acidic fruits for his haroset – thus apples here are a suggestion, rather than a necessary ingredient. Like a number of his contemporaries, he suggests cinnamon and spikenard as spices.23 But perhaps the most interesting ingredient is a small amount of ‘clay or crushed potsherd in memory of the clay.’ His is the first, but by no means the last, evidence for the practice of putting ground potsherds into haroset in the quest for authenticity! R Ovadiah b Abraham, from Bertinero in Italy, (c1450c1516), eventually became leader of the religious Jewish community in Jerusalem. In what became the standard commentary on the Mishnah he writes: And haroset: you make this from figs, hazelnuts, pistachios, almonds and several sorts of fruits. Put in apples, and pound it all in a mortar and mix it with vinegar and put on it spice: cinnamon and sweet calamus, in the form of long thin threads, in memory of the straw and it must be thick in memory of the clay.24 Rabbi Ovadiah has expanded the ingredients here, adding hazelnuts and pistachios, without giving any rationale, like his other Italian colleague. The spice sweet calamus [qaneh] appears in Songs. Here too the decorative thin threads of spice, in memory of the straw, are placed on top, not mixed in with the rest of the ingredients. The combination of figs and vinegar will have given a sweet-sour taste, unlike the sour haroset of R. Zedekiah. Provence At the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, Rabbi Manoah b Shimon Badrashi from Narbonne in Provence, wrote in his commentary on the Rambam:25 Our custom is to make it like this: take chestnuts, peel them, cook them and pound [dukkin] them well in a mortar. And afterwards take almonds and remove their thin skin and pound them with a few walnuts. And take dried figs, raisins without pips, dates and tread them, each separately. Take sour apples, peel them and crush them well and afterwards mix everything in the mortar with a pestle and make them into a paste. Pound with strong wine vinegar little by little so it is well mixed and season with spices eg ginger, sweet calamus, and teven misha called ashqanant,26 and nails of cloves [qofer] and a little spikenard called ashpiq, after they have been ground. Rabbi Manoah begins saying ‘it is our custom,’ implying that he knows it is different from others. This is the first time we have come across chestnuts in haroset, and he gives no other authority for what was clearly a major new ingredient. The figs, raisins and dates are standard now, and acidity is given by sour apples and vinegar. Teven misha and cloves are new ingredients. He calls cloves ‘nails of qofer’ (mediaeval French girofle).27 The Mediaeval Rabbis of Ashkenaz (northern Europe) The famous Rabbi Shlomo b Isaac (RaShI) of Troyes in France (1040-1105), wrote a seminal commentary on the BT. Since it is unclear whether he really wrote the commentary on this particular chapter of BTPesahim, or whether it is only attributed to him, we will call it the Rashi-text.28 In memory of the apple: because [the Jewish women] used to give birth to their children there without pain, so that the Egyptians would not know about them, as it says: Under the apple tree I aroused you. To make it thick: To take it and crush it a great deal so that it will be thick. And you must make it acrid: To put in it apples and wine … you must make it acrid in memory of the apple and you must make it thick in memory of the clay. Spice: yeraqot which you put in the haroset in memory of the straw which you crush in it finely in memory of the clay. Here in the eleventh century, our Ashkenazi Rashi-text’s haroset has sour apples crushed to a thick paste, with wine and yeraqot. Yeraqot may refer to herbs or to any vegetable. Since they come under the heading of ‘spice’ and are in memory of the straw, it is tempting to translate them here as herbs. We have seen that herbs are added to Rambam’s later Sephardi version of haroset. The Rashi-text says that haroset must be made acrid with apples and wine: this wine is clearly a dry wine, so this is another sour haroset. R Shemuel b Meir [RaShBaM ],29 Rashi’s grandson, writes: …To make it thick: Crush many yeraqot in it to make it thick. And you must make it acrid: Put in apples in order to make it acrid and you must make it thick in memory of the clay. Spice: spices which you put in the haroset in memory of the straw … Rashbam adds that you put yeraqot in the haroset to make it thick. We saw that the Rashi-text wrote yeraqot in the context of spices, perhaps referring to herbs, but here since the yeraqot appear as an explanation of making the haroset thick, it is more likely that Rashbam is referring to vegetables in general. Perhaps these were cheaper than other ingredients and could be used to provide bulk rather than flavour. Again, this is a sour haroset. Reply to Rashi – the Tosafot: 12th-14th century The Tosafists were Rashi’s successors as commentators on the BT. They write as follows:30 ... Teshuvot ha-Ge’onim explains that you should make haroset from fruits that the community of Israel is compared to in Songs: Under the apple-tree I aroused you; like a pomegranate spilt open; the fig tree puts forth her green figs; I said: I will climb up into the date palm; nut: I went down to the nut grove. The Tosafists then add: and almonds: because God took care of the end. The Tosafists here produce an innovation which will prove very important for the development of haroset: they write that haroset should be made from fruits to which Israel is compared in Songs: apples, pomegranates, figs, dates and nuts. Thus we now have authority for widening the range of ingredients, based on an expansion of Rabbi Levi’s quotation in the BT about the apple from Songs. If one ingredient from Songs is recommended, why not the rest? This is not a case of fruit which is merely mentioned in Songs – the Tosafists here specify fruits which are allegorised in the midrashim on Songs as symbolising the Jewish people. Thus more symbolic foods are added to the Seder table. It is perhaps ironic that it is an Ashkenazi source which does this, for Ashekenazi haroset has today the fewest variations in ingredients. However, the Teshuvot ha-Ge’onim the Tosafists quote, sadly now lost, from its name was a Ge’onic, and hence Babylonian source. The expansion of the possible fruits leads to sweetening the sour taste. Scholars of Ashkenaz after the Tosafists Rabbi Asher b Yehiel [the ROsh], lived in Northern France and was the leader of the German Jewish community. He fled to Spain in 1303 and became spiritual head of Spanish Jewry, but although he moved from Ashkenaz to Sepharad, he still followed the Ashkenazi tradition. His major work was a commentary on the BT, where he writes about haroset: Spice is in memory of straw. The explanation is: like cinnamon and spikenard [sanbal], which are like straw. His son R. Jacob b Asher, [Tur], continued the Ashkenazi tradition in Spain, as a codifier of Jewish law. He writes:31 And the haroset: This is in memory of the clay with which our fathers were enslaved. Therefore it must be made thick like clay … and it says in the Jerusalem Talmud one person says to make it thick, but one person says to make it thin in memory of the blood. And the explanation of Rabbi Yehiel is both this and this: at first you make it thick, and afterwards you thin it down with vinegar. And you put a spice in, like cinnamon and ginger [zangbil] which are like straw, in memory of the straw which they mixed with the clay… Rabbi Jacob adds a new aspect to haroset: Rabbi Yehiel’s reconciliation of the conflicting opinions in the JT that haroset should be thick like clay or thin like blood. You simply make it thick at first and then thin it down with vinegar afterwards. This is still done at the Seder table in some homes today. The spices he specifies are cinnamon and ginger [zangbil], although his father writes cinnamon and spikenard [sanbal]. Given the similarity between zangbil and sanbal it is possible this was a copyist’s error. However, from now ginger becomes a common ingredient of haroset. Moving back north again to fifteenth century Germany, our next evidence of haroset comes from R Joseph b Moshe, who quotes as his authority R Israel b Petahiyah Isserlin.32 Rabbi Joseph adds a new ingredient to his haroset: – pears. He knows and cites the view that the ingredients should be the fruits to which Israel is compared in Songs, but, he says, ‘most of the people in our country’ are also accustomed to take pears ‘which are common here,’ and he does not object. The Sephardi world: the controversy over potsherds as an ingredient of haroset We saw that in the thirteenth century the Italian Rabbi Zedekiah wrote that some people use crushed potsherds as an ingredient of their haroset. Clearly this custom continued, though we have no further textual evidence of it before Rabbi Joseph David from Salonica, who wrote the Beit David (1740).33 The Beit David writes that Jewish communities in Salonica and Italy put a little ground potsherd or crushed stone (called kallirimini) in their haroset, allegedly following Rashi and Rashbam. This custom was fiercely attacked some years later by Maharam di-Lonzano, who is cited by the famous and authoritative Sephardi Rabbi Hayim David Azulai (the HiDA, 1724-1806): I was astounded to see something as crazy as this – maybe now on [the festival of] Purim they will let blood from people in memory of the command to exterminate the Jews! Surely we should turn misery into rejoicing, and bad to good! This mistake must have been caused by a scribal error in the commentary of the Rashbam and Rashi on this chapter. There it says ‘the potsherd [heres] which they crush finely is in memory of the clay.’ I checked this in a very old manuscript and it says there ‘and the haroset which they crush finely is in memory of the clay,’ and this is what it ought to be… Present day haroset Geographical distribution When I began to collect recipes for haroset I found sixtythree on a single internet site, so I decided I could not collect them all. Instead I chose to take one example from each Jewish community. 34 Overall, if we plot the different sorts of modern haroset on a map of Jewish diaspora communities, we can see that there is a geographical distribution of haroset. Apple-based haroset, as already noted, is used by Ashkenazi communities. Date-based haroset is used by most Sephardi communities – Iraq, Iran, North Africa and Yemen. Some of these communities, such as the Iraqis, and the Iraqi diaspora communities in India, make the same haroset as Sa’adiah Gaon in the tenth century. Others have their own particular addition – eg pomegranates are used by Persian Jews. But in the transitional area of the Balkans, in Greece and Turkey, haroset is raisin-based. As we have seen, the twelfth-century expansion of the rationale for the ingredients to include every fruit that the Jewish people were compared to in the Song of Songs, opened the way for these variations. Innovation and authenticity In the present day there are many innovations in haroset recipes, in keeping with modern trends of seeking the new and exciting, rather than preserving old traditions. But some of the old traditions were, of course, innovations in their own day. We have seen throughout history that not all such innovations are approved by rabbis when they arrive, and some are strongly censured. We saw such objections to using ground-up potsherds as an ingredient of haroset. However, this custom too continues to the present day. My father’s neighbour in synagogue, Menahem Pariente, whose family comes from Gibraltar and who was himself born in Lisbon, brought me his Hebrew and Spanish Haggadah (1813) where the ingredients for haroset are listed as: Almonds, figs, apples, nuts and the like, and well-pounded spices, mixed with the dust of potsherds ground very fine.35 Menahem tells me they boil their potsherd before grinding it up. Because Ashkenazi haroset is almost always the same, and also because it is the most common in the United States, there is some danger that it will eventually become the dominant haroset. I met an Iraqi woman who told me ‘we don’t have proper haroset – only dates and a few nuts and sesame seeds.’ For her ‘proper haroset’ was Ashkenazi haroset, and she was amazed and pleased to find that hers was very similar to the authentic haroset of Sa‘adiah Ga’on. Some families are giving up making haroset – a combined ‘Ashkephardi’ sort with both apples and dates is sold in jars in Israeli supermarkets. On the other hand, there is a threat from excessive innovations – the authenticity of ‘Golden Mango haroset’ seems dubious. But just as in the Middle Ages people would add what was locally available and the rabbis would approve it in retrospect, so people are still adding new local ingredients: bananas are popular. And although these were not part of the original haroset,36 there is an attempt to authenticise them: they go black, and this makes the haroset look more like mud, I was told. I also found one innovation which innovates precisely because it aims at being ultra-authentic. We saw that rabbis who discuss apples in haroset consistently say that these are used to make the haroset acrid. In pre-modern times apples were presumably more liable to be sour than at present, when most apples are bred to be sweet, particularly in the USA. Thus a 21st century internet discussion of haroset by the American Rabbi Howard Jachter37 protests that the Talmud could not possibly have meant the apples we know when it said haroset must be acrid in memory of tapuah, the apple.38 He solves his problem by quoting a different text, not related to haroset, where the Tosafists say that ‘tapuah’ does not mean apple, but citron (etrog, a fruit used on the Jewish festival of Sukkot.) Thus Rabbi Jachter includes citron, rather than apple, in his haroset, an innovation made in the name of authenticity. See on this the excellent article by A. Schaffer ‘The history of horseradish as the bitter herb of Passover’ Gesher 8 (1981) 217-37. 2 The Hebrew word I have translated here as clay or mud is tit which is usually translated into English as ‘mortar.’ This however is a mistake, arising from the Authorised Version (King James) translation of Nahum 3;14, which gives two different Hebrew words for the same thing, clay or mud. The translators of the AV solved their problem by writing ‘clay and mortar’ giving rise to the mistaken identification (at least in Anglophone communities) of haroset as ‘mortar’ which is used to stick bricks together, rather than the mud or clay used to make them, which is clearly what most rabbis meant. 3 Sadie Rose Weilerstein What the Moon Brought (no place, 1942) 4 Jews who originate from Northern and Eastern Europe are called Ashkenazim; Jews originating from Spain and Portugal, North Africa and the Near East are called Sephardim. 1 For a brief explanation of the Talmudic literature, see my paper ‘Nuts for the children: the evidence of the Talmudic literature,’ Nurture: Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery proceedings, (Bristol, 2004). 6 Mishnah Pesahim x, 3 7 In a parallel Talmudic source, the Tosefta, Rabbi El‘azar is quoted as saying to some merchants of Lydda ‘Come and buy your spices for the religious requirement [of haroset].’ Cf. Tosefta Betzah iii 6; BTPesahim 116a; JTPesahim 37d and parallels. 8 MPesahim x, 4. This is also quoted in the Haggadah. 9 On the history of dipping foods at the Seder, see J. Tabory ‘The history of the first dipping on Passover eve in the period of the Mishnah and the Talmud Bar Ilan 14-15 (1977) 70-8 (in Hebrew). 10 JTPesahim x, 37c-d 11 Blood on lintels: Exodus 12. 21-3; plague: 7.20f 12 BTPesahim 114a-116a 13 Cf Exodus 5.6-18. 14 Modern Jewish religious law is based on the Babylonian Talmud: it is unusual for rabbinic commentaries to relate to the Jerusalem Talmud. 15 Midrash Exodus Rabbah 1.12.4 with parallels in Palestinian midrashim and BTSotah 11b etc. 16 D. Goldshmidt (ed.) Seder Rav Amram Ga’on (Jerusalem, 1971) 17 The Rambam made a number of later alterations to his commentary on the Mishnah, which are noted in the edition by Y. Kapah (Jerusalem, 1963-1968) but apparently not to this section. 18 Y. Kapah (ed.) Perush le-Mishnaiot, Pesahim 10, 3 ad loc. (Jerusalem, 1963). 19 Mishneh Torah, Zemanim 2, Hilkhot Hametz uMatzah, viii, 11 (ed. Mossad HaRav Kook, Jerusalem, 1957) 20 S. Buber (ed.) R Zedekiah b Avraham Shibbolei haLeqet [the Gleaned Ears] (Vilna, repr. Jerusalem, 1962) p.184, sect. 263. 21 Aigres: qv A. Darmesteter Les gloses françaises dans les commentaires talmudiques de Raschi (Paris, !929) sv. 22 B. Larioux ‘Cuisines médiévales’ in J.-L. Flandrin, M. Montanari Histoire de l’alimentation (Paris, 1996) 466. 23 Both appear as common spices in the c14th Viandier of Taillevent. See on this B. Laurioux ‘Spices in the medieval diet: a new approach’ Food and Foodways 1 (1985) 43-76;T Scully The Art of cookery in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1995, repr. 2002) 85. 24 Bertinoro on MPesahim x, 3 9 ad loc. 25 Rabbi Manoah b Shimon Badrashi Sefer haMenuhah (repr. Jerusalem, 1967) sect. 7,11. 26 This is identified by as I. Löw Die Flora der Juden (Wien/Leipzig, 1923 repr. Hildesheim, 1967) II, 213 as cymbopogon schoenanthus. 27 It may be that Rabbi Manoah associated cloves with the spice called ‘qofer’ which appears in Songs 1.14, where, however, it refers to henna, and not to cloves. For qofer see Löw above, sv, and Y. Feliks Spice, Forest and Garden Trees (Plants in Biblical and Rabbinic literature vol ii) (Jerusalem 1997, in Hebrew) 76-77. Feliks notes that this wrong identification is given in the mediaeval dictionary called the Aruch. 28 The Rashi-text is to be found at the side of BTPesahim 116a. 29 The commentary of Rashbam is to be found below the Rashi-text at the side of BTPesahim 116a. 30 The Tosafists’ commentary is to be found on the other side of the same page, BTPesahim 116a. 31 Tur, Orah Hayim, Hilkhot Pesah (repr. Jerusalem, 1960) sect. 473. 32 Y. Freimannen (ed.) Joseph b Moshe Sefer Leqet Yosher (Berlin, repr. Jerusalem, 1964) 33 R Joseph David Beit David, a commentary on the Arba’ah Turim (Saloniki, repr Jerusalem, 1990) 34 I hope to publish these in my forthcoming book on haroset. 35 Jacob Meldula Orden de la Agada de Pesah, en Hebraico y Español, segun uzan los Judios españoles y portuguezes, traducido del Hebraico y Caldeo. (Amsterdam and London, 1813) 36 Bananas originate in South-East Asia and appear in Palestine following the 7th century Arab conquest. See on this I. Löw Die Flora der Juden (Wien/Leipzig, 1923 repr. Hildesheim, 1967), II, 253-6. 37 http://koltorah.org/ravj/charoset.htm 38 In fact apples have been found in Bronze Age Mesopotamia and from the 10th century BCE in Palestine. See on this D. Zohary, M. Hopf Domestication of Plants in the Old World (Oxford, 1994) 162-6. 5