The evening in which the paschal meal is eaten is called the night of the “seder,” meaning “order,” because the various actions and recitations comprising it must be performed according to a prescribed sequence. The seder today presents an integrative whole which is constructed of three parts: (1) the story of the Exodus from Egypt; (2) a festive meal with special foods; and (3) songs which are meant to praise God and to create a general feeling of festivity.1 The third part is, even today, relatively unstructured, and we shall not deal with its history in this context.2 We shall try here to portray the changes that occurred in the first and second parts, changes which also involved a change in the relationship between them. These changes have been brought about by two main factors, one external and one internal. On the one hand, meal customs were adopted and adapted from the society and culture in which the Passover was celebrated. On the other hand, the Rabbis conducted a continuous, critical study of rabbinic texts in an attempt to understand how the seder had been conducted when the Temple still existed. Novel explanations of these texts caused the Rabbis to introduce changes to the seder as part of their ongoing attempt to restore, as much as possible, what they took to be the original seder.3
The precise history must begin toward the end of the Second-Temple period. We simply have no evidence of any ceremony or ritual connected with the eating of the paschal lamb in earlier times. The Bible does contain a command to “tell your son in that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt’ ” (Exod. 13:8). This command appears in the context of the seven-day feast of unleavened bread and the paschal lamb is not mentioned in this commandment. Nevertheless, specifying “that day” would seem to refer to the first day of the feast, which was the time that the paschal lamb was eaten. Based on our general knowledge of cultures similar to that of Jews in biblical times, it would seem reasonable to assume that the Passover meal served as an opportunity for the elders to transmit traditions about the origin of the People and its history to the younger generation.4 Some scholars hold that the Sitz im Leben of various Psalms may have been the Passover evening. Among those mentioned in this connection we may count Psalms 77, 78, 105, and 106.5 However, we cannot go beyond generalizations in this question, and there is no evidence that the texts used in the Haggadah today antedate the end of the Second-Temple period.6 The scanty descriptions of the early paschal meal in the later biblical books, as well as the portrayal in Jubilees of the meal eaten just before the Exodus and the report of Philo,7 do mention singing and praise of God, but they do not specifically mention any other ceremonial acts.8
Therefore, our history of the seder must begin with the Mishnah. Both modernity and antiquity have hampered the critical discussion of this crucial text. On the one hand, there is a tendency to interpret it in the light of modern practice, and on the other hand, there is a tendency to interpret it in the light of amoraic theories about the paschal meal during the existence of the Second Temple. It is imperative to try to ignore these factors in order to get a true picture of what the Mishnah really says and what we can surmise about those matters that the Mishnah does not elucidate. Above all, we must remember that the Mishnah was finally redacted only at the beginning of the third century C.E., so we have no way of really knowing to what extent, if at all, it reflects actual practice during the Second-Temple period.
The Mishnah’s description of the seder appears in the final chapter of Tractate Pesachim. The prior chapters deal with the preparations for Passover: getting rid of leaven, preparing the food for the paschal meal, and a detailed description of the preparation of the paschal lamb for its consumption in the evening.9 As pointed out above, however, the final redaction of this chapter (like the rest of the Mishnah) took place about 150 years after the destruction of the Temple and the cessation of the paschal sacrifice. If we remove from the Mishnah those elements that do not belong to its earliest stratum, we are left with a description of how the paschal lamb was eaten on Passover eve according to our earliest surviving source (the numbers represent the paragraphs in the chapter which I take to contain such original material):
2. They poured him the first cup, . . . he recites the blessing for the day.
3. They brought him unleavened bread, lettuce and fruit puree, . . . they bring him the paschal lamb.
4. They poured him the second cup, . . . he expounds the biblical passage, “My father was a wandering Aramean” until the end of the section.
5. They poured him the third cup; he recites the grace after meals. . . .
8. The fourth, he recites the Hallel, and says over it the blessing of the song.
This presentation depends upon an analysis of the Mishnah that is based on the syntactic pattern in which the actions are portrayed. An action portrayed in the past tense is followed by an action portrayed in the present tense, and this pattern is repeated several times. Portraying the action in the past tense is meant not only to inform one that the action is done, but also to present its completion as the time for doing the next action.10 Passages which deviate from this pattern may be considered later additions to the text of the Mishnah.
This analysis reveals the Mishnah’s own unclarity about the time of the actual consumption of the paschal lamb during the evening. The Mishnah tells us that after the food was brought before the participants, the biblical passage was expounded and only after that was the grace after meals recited. There are thus two possibilities: either the food was consumed immediately when it was brought, before the expounding of the Bible, and grace was postponed until after the expounding; or the food was on the table during the expounding of the Bible and it was consumed afterwards, immediately followed by grace.11 It is my contention that the editor of the Mishnah was purposely vague about this point, because a change had occurred in the custom. The earlier custom was to eat the paschal meal immediately, as soon as it was brought before the participants, and to discuss the message of the evening, the Exodus and related subjects, afterwards, before reciting the grace.12 The later custom, which has been retained until today (mutis mutandis), was to discuss the significance of the traditional foods while they were on the table, before eating them, and to recite the grace immediately after eating. This change may be the origin of the custom, mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud, of removing the table on which the food was placed13 before the recital of the Haggadah. The earlier custom had been to eat the food before the Haggadah; in order to stress the new practice of reciting the Haggadah before eating, they removed the food at the point where they would have eaten it.14
The above construction is, of course, conjectural. However, it is interesting to point out that a similar change can be traced in the Greek and Roman sympotic literature.15 This change can be described in three stages. The earliest sympotic literature which has survived, the Socratic symposia depicted by Plato and Xenophon, follows an earlier pattern by which the sympotic discussion follows the meal and is devoted to serious matters. A different type of sympotic literature is found among Latin writers. One of the earliest of these is Horace (65 B.C.E.–8 C.E.), whose report of the dinner of Nasidienus (Satires 2.8) focuses on the food brought to the table. Every course serves as the basis for a lecture by Nasidienus, “with all the seriousness of a philosopher lecturing de rerum natura.”16 The after-dinner entertainment is not portrayed because the guests had fled from the meal, exhausted by the long-windedness of the host. In a similar vein we find the dinner of Trimalchion as portrayed by Petronius (c. 66 C.E.). Although Petronius describes the after-dinner entertainment, most of his work is devoted to the meal itself. These satires seem to presuppose a second stage in which emphasis has shifted from the intellectual pursuits which followed the food to the food itself.17
Chronological arrangement returns us to the East, to Greece, home of Plutarchus, who lived about the same time as Rabban Gamaliel of Yavneh. Here too, we find examples of the second kind of symposium, where emphasis is placed on the meal itself. Plutarchus does gives us a list of after-dinner topics that are suitable for the symposium, suggesting, “Some are supplied by history; others it is possible to take from current events; some contain many lessons bearing on philosophy, many on piety; some induce an emulous enthusiasm for courageous and great-hearted deeds, and some for charitable and humane deeds.”18 But in actuality, most of his talks deal with matters of the meal such as the proper seating of the guests and the task of the symposiarch,19 flowers and wine at the meal (and related topics),20 and similar subjects.
Another quality of the Plutarchan symposium is that even the after-dinner topics are usually based on occurrences during the meal. Thus, when one of the guests left in a huff because he thought that the place offered him was not in accordance with his status, there began a long discussion about the importance of seating people at the meal according to rank.21 The noise of a disturbance outside the house was the occasion for a long excursus on the question why people inside a house hear those outside better than the ones on the outside hear those on the inside.22
One aspect of the older symposium is retained in the Plutarchan symposium—the talks are held after the meal. Plutarchus mentions that “men of wit and taste hurry at once after dinner to ideas as if to dessert.”23 Although it is not always obvious, even the discussions about food brought to the table are held after the meal. For example, truffles which were brought to the table occasioned a discussion about the effect of thunder on truffles,24 and it is only a chance comment25 which makes it clear that this discussion was held after the meal.
The third stage of sympotic literature is represented by Athenaeus, who lived at the turn of the third century B.C.E., approximately the same time as Rabbi Judah the Prince, redactor of the Mishnah. By the time of Athenaeus, the sympotic literature had developed into a literary genre rather than descriptions of actual symposia. It is all the more interesting that the symposia of Athenaeus follow the pattern of stage two in that they present discussions which are described as taking place during the meal and are, to a great extent, based on things that happen at the meal itself. Thus, for example, when the slaves bring the food to the table, Democrites utilizes their arrival as an opportunity to present numerous citations about slaves and slavery.26 When water for washing the hands at the end of the meal is brought to the table, a discussion ensues about how it differs from the water brought before the meal, with further discussion about soap and towels.27 As far as food itself is concerned (as an extreme example), bringing fish to the table serves as the pretext for a discussion about fish which takes up most of the seventh and eight book of the Deipnosophistae.
Athenaeus himself introduces an element of satire of his type of symposium into his writing. Cynulcus, who appears in Athenaeus as one who is constantly complaining that he is about to die from starvation due to the fact that the many discussions about food prevent the guests from eating, uses one of his own complaints as the starting point for a discussion about the proper times for eating.28
These examples may shed an important light on an unusual passage in the Haggadah which, in turn, may illuminate the relationship between sympotic literature and the Haggadah:
It is told of Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Joshua, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah, Rabbi Akiba, and Rabbi Tarfon,29 that they were once reclining around their Passover table at Bnei Brak and were speaking about the Exodus from Egypt all that night, until their disciples came and said to them, “Our masters! The time has arrived for the recitation of the morning Sh’ma.”
Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said (to them):30 “I am about seventy years old and I have not succeeded in proving that the story of the Exodus from Egypt should be said at night until Ben Zoma expounded it. . . .”31
Although these two paragraphs read as a connected story, each one is to be considered as a separate source. There is an internal contradiction between them. The first paragraph depicts Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah as sitting with several other rabbis, including Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua, who had been leaders of the Sanhedrin when Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah was still a youth. In the second paragraph, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah says that he is seventy years old. Lieberman pointed out that it is not likely that Eliezer and Joshua would still be alive.32 It is thus clear that each paragraph is to be considered a separate story.
The first paragraph occurs only in the Haggadah. It is not traceable to any rabbinic source, although a similar story is found in the Tosefta, which tells us about sages who spent the paschal night discussing the laws of Passover until the cock crowed, at which time they left the table for the house of study (Pascha 10.12, pp. 198–99). The second paragraph, however, is found in the Mishnah of Berakhot, where it is clear that the passage is originally unrelated to the obligation to discuss the Exodus at the paschal meal. Its true subject is the daily obligation to mention the Exodus during the recitation of the evening Sh’ma. The question is why the redactor of the Haggadah juxtaposed these two passages.
The example of Athenaeus provides us with an answer to this question. The redactor has created a piece of sympotic literature. The scholars are depicted as sitting at the table; the comment of the students to the effect that the time has arrived for the recital of the morning Sh’ma evokes a discussion about whether the night was also an appropriate time for a reference to the Exodus—as part of the evening Sh’ma. If this explanation is true, we might consider this passage as a declaration by the redactor that the Passover Haggadah belongs to the genre of sympotic literature.33
In the history of sympotic literature we find another parallel to an innovation in the Passover tradition: the attribution of a specific meaning to the food that is served. Our analysis of the early stratum of the Mishnah showed just one discussion of the Exodus—the midrash based on the biblical passage, “My father was a wandering Aramean.” The Mishnah, however, is a composite document, so that its chapter on the seder contains later strata still. These later strata are necessarily prior to 200 C.E., when the final document was codified, but earlier than the elements listed above (p. 64). They include the questions asked by the child at the beginning of the Haggadah (nowadays known as the Four Questions, but at that time there were only three) referring to the three foods required at the seder, and an exegesis linking these foods to the Exodus. This exegesis, considered mandatory by Rabban Gamaliel,34 was as follows:
Rabban Gamaliel said, “Whoever did not say these three things on Passover did not fulfill his obligation: 1. Pesach (paschal lamb)—because the Omnipresent skipped over the houses of our ancestors in Egypt. 2. Maror (bitter herbs)—because the Egyptians embittered the lives of our ancestors in Egypt.35 3. Matsah (unleavened bread)—because they were redeemed.”36
Several scholars have pointed out that these explanations may be a polemic against Christian interpretations of foods brought to the table.37 The Gamaliel in question would then be Gamaliel II, who lived shortly after the destruction of the Temple, the same Rabban Gamaliel who changed the structure of the Amidah to include a blessing meant to exclude Jewish heretics, possibly primarily Jewish-Christians, from the synagogue service.38 In our context, the important point to notice is that this ideological exposition is not an exposition of biblical text but of the food brought to the table, akin both to Jesus’ explanation of the bread and wine which were served at the table and to the sympotic custom of stages two and three, whereby it became common to explain the history and significance of foods brought to the table.
Another result of our analysis is the elimination of the first dipping, the dipping of lettuce into charoset, from the earliest stratum of the Mishnah. The portrayal of this dipping has long been considered a later gloss to the text of the Mishnah.39 We can now assume that the custom itself is an addition to the earlier stratum of the seder, and we are also able to explain why this custom was added. In the earlier period, the flesh of the paschal lamb was eaten immediately and the discussions and stories were relegated to the after-dinner conversation, corresponding to the first stage of the sympotic tradition. When it became customary, as in the second stage, to delay the meal until after the exposition of the foods and the story of the Exodus, the regular table-custom of dipping vegetables (well known to us from Hellenistic literature) was adopted in order to provide some sustenance before the delayed meal. It became common at this time, therefore, to dip lettuce in a sweet dip made from wine and fruits, known as charoset. Lettuce was the natural selection for this dipping, as it had already been brought before the participants in order to be eaten later as bitter herbs.40 It was, however, somewhat absurd to eat lettuce early on as an appetizer and then to eat it later ritually as bitter herbs. Babylonian scholars, who discussed this difficulty, solved the problem by using some other vegetable, such as parsley or radish,41 for the first dipping, and this solution was followed by later generations who considered the Babylonian Talmud as authoritative.
Eventually, the charoset in which the lettuce had originally been dipped was also replaced. In their critical study of the Mishnah, medieval French scholars came to the mistaken conclusion that charoset could not have been used for the first dipping in the time of the Mishnah, and in the interests of tradition(!), they substituted salt water or vinegar for the charoset.
The cessation of the sacrificial meal altogether brought about several other changes in the order of the meal. A perplexing problem in any attempt to portray these changes is that we have very little knowledge about how Passover eve was celebrated by people who had not gone to Jerusalem for the holiday, even in the days when the Temple still stood. Although multitudes went to Jerusalem, it is clear that the number of Jews who stayed at home was far greater. Presumably, the latter celebrated the festival eve in some way, but we have no extant description of what they did. Even Philo, who lived in Egypt and did not usually go to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage holidays, described the Passover eve ceremony as it took place in Jerusalem and not as it was celebrated in Egypt. Thus, we get from him no hint as to early Diaspora alternatives where no Temple existed. Therefore, when we discuss the practices involved in a non-sacrificial paschal meal, we cannot be sure whether these practices developed after the destruction of the Temple or whether they were already customary before the destruction among those who had not gone to Jerusalem for the sacrifice.
The main change, of course, was the substitution of a different main course for the flesh of the paschal lamb, which was unavailable. One obvious possibility was to eat roast lamb in order to preserve, as much as possible, the ambiance of the paschal tradition. However, this was in conflict with a tendency of the Rabbis to stress that there were no substitutes for the Temple. The standard formulation for this perspective, developed in amoraic Babylon, was to forbid those things that might be interpreted as indicating the continuation of sacrificial ceremonies outside the Temple. Thus, for instance, Rava (fourth century) ruled that when buying meat for Passover, one should not say, “This meat is for Pesach,” because it sounds as if the buyer meant that he was buying meat for the Pesach sacrifice. A similar misunderstanding might follow if one ate roast lamb at the seder. Nevertheless, some people did eat roasted meat at the seder all the way until the geonic period, and in Palestine (at least) some of them even had a special blessing said over this meat: “Blessed art Thou . . . Who has commanded us to eat matsah, bitter herbs, roasted meat, to remember his great deeds. Blessed art Thou Who remembers the covenant.”42 After the geonic period, we find no more evidence of this custom.43
The other possibility for the main course of the non-sacrificial paschal meal was to treat it as a regular festive meal. This was apparently the understanding of Rabbi Yose, who said that outside the Temple one should bring “two cooked dishes” to the table (B.T. Pes. 114b). The phrase “two cooked dishes” appears in other rabbinic sources as a reference to the menu of a festive meal in general, and this is apparently what is meant in this context. However, these “two cooked dishes” eventually took on symbolic meaning unique to Passover. They were said to represent the offerings that had once been brought to the Temple as part of the Passover sacrificial regimen, with the result that later still, these dishes, which had once been eaten, were to be considered as sacrificial symbols—and were not to be eaten!44
The other important change in the meal involved what was later called the afikoman. The prescription for the seder found in the Mishnah ended with the rule, “After [eating from] the Passover offering, [they] do not end [with] afikoman [=revelry].”45 It is generally accepted that the intent of this passage is to prevent the after-dinner carousing which was common after festive meals.46 However, already in the third century, the main thrust of this passage was no longer understood by some of the amoraim, who took the afikoman to mean some kind of food which was ordinarily served as dessert (Pes. 119b). They, or the redactors of their discussion, understood that the intent of the rule forbidding afikoman was that one should retain the flavor of the sacrificial meat in one’s mouth even after the meal. This, in turn, made them wonder whether this rule applied even when there was no sacrifice. The specific question that they raised was whether it was necessary to retain the taste of matsah in one’s mouth after the meal. This problem entailed another change of meaning. The ruling of the Mishnah used the term pesach to mean not just the flesh of the lamb but the paschal meal. However, the amoraim understood the term to mean just the flesh of the lamb. This fit in well with their understanding that a symbolic amount of the flesh was to be eaten at the close of the meal. According to their understanding of forbidding the afikoman, foregoing the dessert would leave the taste of the meat of the pesach in their mouths. Substituting the matsah for the pesach47 would require one to end the meal by eating a symbolic quantity of matsah, even though they had eaten matsah throughout the meal, since no other bread was available. Although there were various opinions on whether this was necessary, the more stringent ruling won the day. Both Rabbi Isaac Alfasi48 and Maimonides49 ruled that the meal had to end with a symbolic quantity of matsah—the size of an olive. However, neither Alfasi nor Maimonides call the matsah “afikoman.” They still think of the afikoman as something that is forbidden.
The earliest use of the term afikoman for the matsah eaten at the end of the meal appears in the twelfth century. When Rashi once forgot to close the meal by eating a piece of matsah, it was reported that he neglected to eat the afikoman.50 The fact that Rashi forgot it would seem to imply that he did not think it very important. However, in another context,51 Rashi mentions that the most important piece of matsah is the last piece, because with the eating of this piece one fulfills the biblical commandment of eating unleavened bread. Rashi adds that this matsah is also in memory of the flesh of the paschal lamb, which had been eaten at the end of the meal.52
A contradiction inherent in the attitude of Rashi brought about another change in the seder. Rashi gave the afikoman a double task in the seder. It was eaten both in fulfillment of the obligation of matsah and also as a memorial to the paschal lamb. Maharil (1360?–1427), who lived in Germany, decided that eating a symbolic piece, the size of an olive, could not do double duty. His custom, as registered by his student Zalman of St. Goar, was to eat twice that quantity so that one olive’s worth would be for the matsah and the second would serve as a remembrance of the paschal lamb. Rabbi Moses Isserles (Poland, sixteenth century) quoted this opinion in his work Darchei Moshe, but he omitted it in his notes to the Shulchan Arukh. Many later decisors recommended eating a double quantity of matsah, one as matsah and one in memory of the sacrifice, but most of them added that one should at least eat the quantity of one olive. Based on personal experience, people find it difficult to eat the afikoman after eating a sumptuous Passover meal, and this is probably the reason why the more stringent ruling was not generally accepted.
To sum up, we have tried to show how the paschal meal has changed from a sacrificial meal, in which the food was the main event of the evening, into a type of sympotic meal which itself went through changes. The seder as we know it is similar to the second-stage symposium, in which the discussions and conversations became the main elements of the evening, and many of these discussions are related to the foods consumed during the evening. Eventually, the foods were treated as symbols and were eaten in symbolic quantities. As symbols, they evoked further exegesis, which resulted in additional regulations about their consumption, and even prevented their being eaten at all. This, in turn, served further to emphasize the conversational aspect of the seder. In modern times, among people who are less heedful of the halakhic demands of tradition, the meal has become a traditional family gathering, emphasizing the belonging of the participants to the group—often at the expense of the lengthy Haggadah. In a way, this restores the ancient aspects of the paschal meal as it was held in Egypt, a meal meant to stress kinship among family and people, rather than a sacrificial meal meant to stress the relationship of the people with God.53
This paper was written while I was a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I wish to thank the Institute and its director, Dr. David Shulman, for their kindness and hospitality.
1. Cf. Ruth Gruber Fredman, The Passover Seder: Afikoman in Exile (Philadelphia, 1981), p. 98. Fredman suggests that this division is structural: the first part deals with the past, the Exodus; the second part is the meal [present]; “the final part speaks mostly of hope of future deliverance.” For a different analysis of the seder in its entirety, see Joseph Tabory, The Passover Ritual throughout the Generations (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1996), pp. 378–84.
2. For the history of the songs of the seder, see Tabory, Passover Ritual, pp. 307–49.
3. See H. Soloveitchik, “Rupture and Transformation: The Transformation of Modern Orthodoxy,” Tradition 28, no. 4 (1994): 64–130; H. Soloveitchik, “Religious Law and Change: The Medieval Ashkenazic Example,” AJS Review 12 (1987): 205–21. Soloveitchik discusses the tension inherent in a system which bases its tradition both on texts and on oral tradition.
4. Cf. Lawrence A. Hoffman, Beyond the Text: A Holistic Approach to Liturgy (Bloomington, 1989), p. 87.
5. See Tabory, Passover Ritual, pp. 350–51, and the literature cited in notes 6–8.
6. Cf. Finkelstein’s claims that the present Haggadah text existed in Hasmonean times: L. Finkelstein, “The Oldest Midrash,” HTR 31 (1938): 291–317; “Pre-Maccabean Documents in the Passover Haggada,” HTR 35 (1942): 291–352 and 36 (1943): 1–38; and refutations by Goldschmidt, Haggadah Shel Pesach V’toldoteha (Jerusalem, 1960), pp. 30–47; Hoffman, Beyond the Text, p. 90.
7. For analysis, see M. Liber, “Le Séder de la Diaspora,” REJ 82 (1926): 211–21 (=Mélanges offerts à Israel Lévi, Paris 1926); Tabory, Passover Ritual, pp. 78–92.
8. For summary of arguments against the existence of a Haggadah before the destruction of the Temple, see Israel Yuval, “Easter and Passover as Early Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” in this volume. It is notable that the meals of the Therapeutae did contain an element of Bible study after the meal was eaten. See Baruch M. Bokser, Philo’s Description of Jewish Practices, Protocol of the Thirtieth Colloquy: 5 June 1977, of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture (Berkeley, 1977), p. 7.
9. The Mishnah follows its general principle of arranging things chronologically. See my article “The Order of the Mishnah in the First Chapter of Tractate Beitsah” (Hebrew), Mikhtam Le-David—Memorial Volume for David Ochs (Ramat Gan, 1978), pp. 55–67. Thus, the Mishnah starts with the search for leaven, which takes place on the eve of the 14th, continues with the destruction of the leaven which takes place on the morning of the 14th, follows with the sacrifice of the lamb which takes place in the afternoon, and concludes with the paschal meal which takes place on the eve of the 15th. See Baruch Bokser, The Origins of the Seder: The Passover Rite and Early Rabbinic Judaism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984), pp. 46–48. Bokser mixes together two separate issues: the relationship of chapter 10 to the earlier chapters, and the place of the two final sentences of the Mishnah, which do not follow the chronological order.
10. This pattern exists elsewhere in the Mishnah’s portrayal of ceremonies and rituals conducted during the existence of the Second Temple. See J. Breuer, “Past Tense and Participle in Portrayals of Ceremonies in the Mishnah” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 56 (1987): 299–326. Breuer did not find this method in our chapter because he did not strip away the later accretions to the chapter.
11. See Daniel M. Cohn-Sherbok, “A Jewish Note on To Poterion Tes Eulogias,” New Testament Studies 27 (1981): 704–9; cf. Phillip Sigal, “Another Note to 1 Corinthians 10:16,” New Testament Studies 29 (1983): 134–39.
12. So too the structure of the communal meals held by the Therapeutae as described by Philo (see above, n. 8).
13. This was possible since the tables used in talmudic times were actually table tops, or trays, which were carried in with the food on them and placed on table legs which were in the dining room. See J. Tabory, “The Household Table in Rabbinic Palestine,” AJS Review 4 (1979): 211–15. In countries where the dining table was too large to be removed, they just removed the unleavened bread and other symbolic foods from table. See L. J. Weinberger, “Hebrew Poetry from the Byzantine Empire: A Survey of Recent and Current Research,” Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies 3 (Winter 1988): 21.
14. Since one of the foci of the discussion was to be the significance of the food, it would seem that the tables were returned, or the food returned to the table, before the time for its consumption.
15. For the latest data on the symposium, see Blake Leyerle, “Meal Customs in the Greco-Roman World,” in this volume. The first scholar to discuss its relationship to the Passover seder was, apparently, Edward Baneth, who published a popular lecture in Berlin in 1904, entitled “Der Sederabend: Ein Vortrag.” Only sporadic references to Hellenistic customs had appeared earlier (for history of scholarly discussion, see Tabory, Passover Ritual, pp. 13–27). For comparison of Oriental symposia with the Greek model, see Walter Burkert, “Oriental Symposia: Contrasts and Parallels,” in William J. Slater, ed., Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor, 1991), pp. 7–24.
16. H. Rushton Fairclough, Horace: Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, Loeb Classical Library 1942, p. 245, note c.
17. See M. N. Clarke, “Jewish Table Manners in the Cena Trimalchionis,” Classical Journal 87 (1992): 257–63.
18. Table-Talk, 1.1, 614, Loeb Classical Library 1969, pp. 14–16.
19. Ibid., 1.2–4, 615–624, pp. 24–62.
20. Ibid., III.1–9, 645–657, pp. 204–71.
21. Ibid., I.2–3, 615–619, pp. 24–48.
22. Ibid., VIII.3, 720–722, pp. 130–43.
23. Ibid., V, 672, p. 373.
24. Ibid., IV.2, 664–666, pp. 316–30.
25. Ibid., IV.2, 665e, p. 326.
26. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 6.262–268.
27. Ibid., 9.408d–411.
28. Ibid., 156b. As a sidelight on the perpetuation of tradition, it is interesting to note that in spite of these changes from the Socratic model of Plato, Athenaeus considered himself as continuing this tradition (1.2).
29. The satire of Horace also began with a list of the people who were present and a description of how they sat at the table. Cf. S. Stein, “The Influence of Symposia Literature on the Literary Form of the Pesach Haggadah,” JJS 69 (1957): 33–34.
30. These two words appear in many of the versions of this story, but they are not found in the best traditions. It would seem that they were added because it was felt that this paragraph is a continuation of the former one.
31. Translation based on Menahem M. Kasher, ed., Israel Passover Haggadah (New York, 1957), p. 55.
32. S. Lieberman, Tosefta Kifshutah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta, Order Zeraim, Part 1 (New York, 1955), p. 12. This problem has been resolved in the Babylonian Talmud (Ber. 28a) by understanding Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah as saying “I seem to be seventy years old,” thus implying that he was really much younger than he looked. The Talmud assumes that he was really eighteen years old but he turned prematurely white so that his appearance would befit one who was the head of the Sanhedrin.
33. On interruption of the symposium and its ending as a topos in sympotic literature see Josef Martin, Symposion: Die Geschichte einer literarischen Form (Paderborn, 1931), pp. 139–48.
34. The relationship between the questions and the explanations has been obscured both by the fact that the questions appear at the beginning of the Haggadah while the explanations appear only at the end, after other discussions; and by the fact that one of the original three questions has been omitted, two others have been added, and the text of the original questions has changed. For a detailed survey of this issue, see Tabory, Passover Ritual, pp. 260–62.
35. M’rorim is the generic term for all bitter herbs that may be used at the seder. The term maror originally referred to one of these herbs, but in later times, it replaced the term m’rorim as a generic term.
36. The translation follows Bokser, Origins of the Seder, p. 30.
37. D. Goldschmidt, Haggadah, p. 52, n. 4; also noted by J. Rosenwasser, in an oral communication to S. Stein (S. Stein, “Influence of Symposia Literature,” p. 42, n. 121).
38. See R. Kimelman, “Birkat ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity,” in E. P. Sanders, ed., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. 2, Aspects of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman Period (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 229–44, 391–403. For an attempt to identify these heretics with the Essenes, see D. Flusser, “MMT and the Blessing of the Heretics” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 61 (1992): 333–74. For earlier literature, see Joseph Tabory, Jewish Prayer and the Yearly Cycle: A List of Articles (Jerusalem, 1992–1993), pp. 114–15.
39. The main reason for this is that this phrase presents a syntactical problem which is resolved by the assumption that it is a gloss. For discussion, see Tabory, Passover Ritual, p. 73, n. 152.
40. Lettuce was the preferred choice for “bitter herbs,” and this was also the Samaritan custom, even though it did not have a bitter taste (see Tabory, Passover Ritual, pp. 251–52, nn. 7–8). It has been suggested that lettuce was chosen because it was commonly used for dipping before the meal in the Hellenistic world (see Stein, “Influence of Symposia Literature,” pp. 16–17). The Palestinian Talmud says that lettuce could be considered a bitter herb because, if left in the field, it would turn bitter. It is possible that the lettuce used in biblical times may have been a somewhat different variety which was actually bitter (see J. B. Segal, The Hebrew Passover from the Earliest Times to A.D. 70 [Oxford, 1963], pp. 170–71). The use of lettuce has survived today in many Jewish communities. For the substitution of horseradish in European communities, see Arthur Schaffer, “The History of Horseradish as the Bitter Herb of Passover,” Gesher 8 (1981): 217–37.
41. Although Amram Gaon gives a list of suggestions which includes five vegetables (Seder Rav Amram Gaon, ed. Daniel Goldschmidt [Jerusalem, 1971], p. 112), parsley was commonly used. The Hebrew word for parsley, karpas, became a mnemonic for the first dipping, even when other vegetables were used. Marmorstein has suggested, hesitatingly, that parsley was chosen “in order to counteract the superstitious fears of the Greeks” who believed that parsley grew from Corybantis blood (A. Marmorstein, “Comparisons between Greek and Jewish Religious Customs and Popular Usages,” in Bruno Schindler, ed., Occident and Orient . . . In Honour of Haham Dr. M. Gaster’s 80th Birthday—Gaster Anniversary Volume [London, 1936], p. 420).
42. Israel Abrahams, “Some Egyptian Fragments of the Passover Haggada,” JQR, o.s., 10 (1898): 46.
43. This subject does not appear as such in geonic literature (see Lawrence A. Hoffman, The Canonization of the Synagogue Service [Notre Dame, 1979], pp. 1–23), but some Genizah fragments display a blessing over roast meat. The retention until geonic times of the question about eating roast meat at the seder shows that people still ate roast meat at their seder. This question was finally replaced with the question about “sitting or leaning” (see Tabory, Passover Ritual, pp. 102–105).
44. See Tabory, Passover Ritual, pp. 105–122.
45. The translation follows Bokser, Origins of the Seder, p. 31.
46. Cf. Lawrence Hoffman, “A Symbol of Salvation in the Passover Haggadah,” Worship 53 (1979): 519–37, reprinted in volume 6 of this series (“A Symbol of Salvation in the Passover Seder”); and Bokser, Origins of the Seder, p. 132, n. 62. For the history of the translation of this term, see Tabory, Passover Ritual, p. 23, n. 49.
47. Hoffman (“Symbol of Salvation,” p. 536) suggests that the substitution of bread for the lamb was facilitated by “the fact that bread was already a salvational symbol in the common imagination.”
48. Hillel Hyman, Alfasi: Tractate Pesachim according to the first printed edition (Constantinople 1509) (Jerusalem, 1990), p. 164.
49. Yad Hachazakah, Hilchot Chametz Umatsah, 8.9.
50. Responsa of Rashi, no. 304, p. 326. It would seem that the first use of the term afikoman in a positive context is from Shibolei Haleket (mid-thirteenth century), whose author writes that they end the meal with the piece of matsah “which is called afikoman” (Seder Pesach, 218). This is one of the major reasons for rejecting the hypothesis of Eisler and Daube that the afikoman was originally a rite symbolizing the arrival of the Messiah as the culmination of the anticipation for his arrival. Eisler suggested this in 1925 and his hypothesis was not well received. David Daube revived this hypothesis, eliminating many of the anachronisms in Eisler’s exposition, but also retaining many of them. Daube, aware of this fact, claimed that these were not true anachronisms but rather ancient traditions which had been both distorted and neglected for many centuries until later generations came to observe them in their ancient form. For a comprehensive, sympathetic summary of Daube’s position, see Deborah Bleicher Carmichael, “David Daube on the Eucharist and the Passover Seder,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42 (June 1991): 45–67, and Israel Yuval, “Easter and Passover as Early Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” in this volume.
51. Commentary to B. T. Pes. 119b.
52. This interpretation is found no earlier than Rashi. It is therefore difficult to draw an analogy between matsah as a memorial and Jesus’ demand to “do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24). See Jakob J. Petuchowski, “ ‘Do This in Remembrance of Me’ (1 Cor. 11:24),” JBL 76 (1957): 293–98.
53. For significance of the Egyptian paschal meal, cf. Jeffrey Cohen, Moments of Insight (London: 1989), pp. 37–63; and Pauline Schmitt-Pantel, “Sacrificial Meal and Symposion: Two Models of Civic Institution in the Archaic City?” in Oswyn Murray, ed., Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion (Oxford, 1990), pp. 14–33.