Monday, April 04, 2011

Should you really eat grated horseradish on Passover? Evidence from an Angleterrish Haggadah from New York, 1837.

Speaking of Haggadahs, Dan Rabinowitz called my attention to the fact that the JNUL added the 1837 edition of the Haggadah, published in New York (and, supposedly, the first Haggadah printed in the United States). See here.

Couple of interesting points. First of all you have to love the reference to "English" as לשון ענגלאטירא, the language of Angleterra. Fancy. The translation was made by David Levi (see here for my prior posts which mention David Levi, that most interesting of 18th century British haberdasher talmid-chachams).


Secondly, I thought this reference to horseradish as marror was interesting.


The "green top of the Horse-radish?" Do you know anyone who uses that, rather than the root? Are all of us who use the grated root being fools? (Full disclosure: I don't use horseradish at all.) How interesting.

Incidentally, in the early days of using horseradish for marror, most likely people did use the leaves. After all, the Semag quotes Rabbenu Tam prohibiting root vegetables for marror. The Maharil forbids using the root based on Rabbenu Tam. Many, many other halachic sources also forbid the root, which of course only highlights the fact that people were using - the root. Later, the Magen Avraham and others recognized a compromise: the leaves should be used for marror, and the grated root for korech.

Finally, since we're talking about Haggadahs, here's an example of an editor who didn't just talk about making an emendation, he went ahead and did it. I'm talking about the problematic phrase from bentsching, where God's hand is described as "full, open, holy and broad." With the change of one very similar sounding consonant in Hebrew, the phrase becomes "full, open, enlarged and broad."

This is from a Haggadah from Leipzig, 1844 (here; unfortunately the title page is missing and I have no other data):


See Baruch She'amar by Rabbi Baruch Epstein, page 211-2, for a good explanation of why הגדושה makes more sense than הקדושה. It will of course be observed that R. Epstein (b. 1860) obviously was not the first to be struck with this idea.

20 comments:

  1. Fotheringay-Phipps6:12 PM, April 04, 2011

    I think you're wrong about gedusha. It's an old variant.

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  2. My family's tradition is to have grated horseradish root on the seder plate for "hhazeret" (which gets eaten), and the *top* of the root on the seder plate for "maror" (which does not). No leaves, but that might just be because they don't have leaves on the ones in the supermarket...

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  3. >Secondly, I thought this reference to horseradish as marror was interesting.

    Also intresante that he does not advise one to point at his wife when saying marror.

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  4. Random factoid - R Hershel Shachter says "ha-gedusha" in place of "ha-kedosha" during bentching

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  5. F-P: It's not an old variant, but a late emendation. Older texts didn't have the word at all, but just:
    כי אם לידך המלאה הפתוחה והרחבה
    (which is what I say)
    or omitted the entire line entirely. Non-Ashkenazic texts have variants such as השׂבֵעה and העשירה.

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  6. Are all of us who use the grated root being fools?

    Not fools, just incorrect. :-)

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  7. So did RYBS (say gedusha). See nefesh harav pg 148. Rav shachter claims it was the nusach of the besht also. On pg 182 he writes about another emendation RYBS heard from rav Epstein regarding the chasima to the shmone esrei of shalosh regalim. Is it possible he also heard about gedusha from him?

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  8. I like the phonetic transliterations of "Londen" and "Noo Yark" on the title page.

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  9. In our family, leaves (lettuce and/or endive) are put on the keara for "chazeret" and a cup of grated horseradish root topped with the whole head of the root (with some shoots still on top) for "maror". The head of the root is lifted for the section in Maggid but never eaten; both the leaves and the grated root are eaten at both Marror and Korech.

    I personally set my plate like the Rama and don't have a separate chazeret; I don't hold from horseradish anyway (anachronistic, and sharp rather than bitter) but have it together with some leaves for old times' sake.

    The Torah Temima is known for another chiddush in the Haggadah, the "Pesachim u'zevachim" bit. (Cf. his "Migdol/Magdil" bit- I think both sound fine, but others aren't so sure.)

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  10. I don't hold from horseradish anyway (anachronistic, and sharp rather than bitter)

    Not anachronistic per se; the plant is probably native to southeastern Europe and western Asia, and was known throughout the Roman Empire. However, (a) Chazal didn't include it in the list of vegetables;* (b) at least the root is sharp, not bitter -- I don't know about the leaves; (c) there's hardly enough leafage on a whole horseradish plant to give a kezayis for a single individual.


    (*Reinterpretations of תמכא actually are anachronistic!)

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  11. >I think you're wrong about gedusha. It's an old variant.

    I was going to say what Mar Gavriel said (although he says it with much more authority).

    If it's really an old variant, since it makes so much sense, don't you think that at least some bentchers or siddurim would adopt it?

    I forgot about the Baal Shem of Międzybóż thing. I am aware that rebbeshe writings in Chabad cite this a number of times. So, the question is, did the Besht mean this as an al tikre kind of drasha or a textual correction?

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  12. Angleterre - see how Ibn Ezra refers to London in his "Iggeret Shabbat:

    ואני אברהם ספרדי אבן עזרא הייתי בעיר אחת מערי האי הנקרא קצה הארץ

    http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/shabat/luach/igeret-2.htm

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  13. Thanks. Angleterre and the like are common in Hebrew writings - including in England - well into the 18th century. I just hadn't seen it in something from 1837! Of course, in Italian England is "Inghilterra," and similar in Spanish, etc.

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  14. Mar Gavriel said...
    ...(c) there's hardly enough leafage on a whole horseradish plant to give a kezayis for a single individual.

    This is false. We used to have horseradish growing in our garden (after my father decided to bury the left-over marror one year...) and the leaves are absolutely enormous: about a foot and a half long.
    See a picture here:
    http://duo.irational.org/cgi-bin/food_for_free/foods/foods.pl?action=details&food=10080
    You can read about the experience of someone who ate them here (last comment): http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/herbal/msg0923341910313.html

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  15. "If (gedusha is) really an old variant, since it makes so much sense, don't you think that at least some bentchers or siddurim would adopt it?"

    Last Pesach, I mentioned this gedusha issue to a rabbi, and he didn't seem interested in it. Perhaps it was because I introduced it hesitantly; after all, I didn't have any facts. However, after a meal, he bentsched from one of the myriad haggadahs that were lying around his dining room. Why he used an old Maxwell House Haggadah instead of a nicer, newer one which he usually uses, is beyond me. During his bentsching, he leaned over to me and showed me the haggadah and pointed out, with a gleam in his eye, the word gedusha.

    -- Phil

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  16. N., that's fascinating. I guess Guggenheimer is wrong.

    ReplyDelete
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