One more Pesach question

[catalana]

Thank you so much for all your help on the last round! Here's one more round of making-sure-Erica-doesn't-get-it-wrong (or at least, upping the odds.) I know that the various foods in the Pesach Seder have symbolic meanings. I have read a few places online that the bitter herbs (maror) represent...something like the bitterness of being enslaved

Comments

[ladymondegreen]

bitter herbs (maror) represent...something like the bitterness of being enslaved. Is that right?That's the tradition that I follow. Many people use herbs that start out sweet and become bitter (romaine lettuce is popular) to simulate the change from Egypt in the time of Joseph, when Jacob's family moved to the land of Goshen and had good pasturing land and good fortune, to their downfall under the changing regime, which led to their enslavement. The idea being that what was sweet now turns to bitterness

[filkerdave]

Other than the roasted shank bone on the seder plate, we've never had lamb at our seder.

Lots of salt water to represent tears.

Lots of charoset to represent the mortar (we can never make enough; my mom's recipe is really, really tasty).

You might also want to take a look at a Passover haggadah, because that explains some of the symbolism as well.

[filkerdave]

It's a pity this is the wrong time of year to invite you to one.

You'd leave seder but wiser.

[batyatoon]

... man, hagaddah say that was terrible.

[tigerbright]

Here's a good resource for general Pesach questions, though oriented for kids (and hey, put together by my workplace!):
http://www.jgateways.org/Resources/Passover

Wikipedia gets it right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover_Seder_Plate

[catalana]

Thank you! I've been looking at a number of resources online, but I'm always a little worried I'll pick one that's got something wrong and end up misrepresenting things. Hence picking my friends' brains. *grin*

I am kind of amused that this was the very first example that sprang to mind for me, despite the fact that I've never attended a Seder nor am I Jewish. But so many of my friends post about the holiday and, well, I notice almost anything that has to do with food. *grin* A few minutes later I thought of Thanksgiving and about 6 weeks later I realized I could probably use communion, too, although it involves less actual food.

[teddywolf]

Something you might want to ponder: most Jewish holidays are centered around food in some way. Hanukkah has fried foods, like potato latkes and sufganiyot (think jelly doughnuts); Rosh Hashanah has apples and honey; Shavuot has various dairy items; Sukkot has harvest foods; Purim has hamantaschen; and Shabbat itself is supposed to be when you eat better than you would the rest of the week. We're very food-centric, which is odd given our relatively small number of truly Jewish cultural foods. Contrast this with various flavors of Christianity, which may have the ritual holy wafer but otherwise have no specific culturally unifying traditional foods that I know of. I know too little about other religions to speak on them.

The Jewish fasts actually play into this as well, because they are specifically about the absence of food. Passover is unique in Judaism, as far as I can tell, in that it is the only holiday that has both specific foods and a partial fast (no chametz, and for many no kithniyot).

[samwinolj]

Easter eggs, candy canes, fish on Friday, Christianity has plenty of calendar-specific foods, but they tend to be (as Christianity is) heavily influenced by ethnicity and denomination. I'm too ignorant of Judaism to compare and contrast.

[loriruadh]

Christian "ritual" foods:

Mardi Gras -- King cake; Shrove Tuesday pancakes; Good Friday - hot cross buns (UK); pascha and kulick (Easter) Russia; Italy has an Easter bread shaped like a dove and panettone for Christmas; Greece, spit-roasted Lamb for Easter as well as a host of baked goods...