Talk:Passover Seder

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Contents

[edit] Merge?

merger debate at Talk:Haggadah_of_Pesach

Revert to take out senseless edits. (Masema 07:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Number of Seder Foods

This article says there are "always six" seder foods, but I am pretty sure many communities only use five. The food in dispute is the bitter vegetable, the chazeret. Does anyone know more about this?


[edit] It would be nice to have some Hebrew text

Anyone speak Hebrew? It'd be nice to have actual Hebrew text next to the transliterations in the article. I'll be doing a bit more copyediting article on the article soon if no one else takes care of it...shouldn't be too much of a problem, I only noticed a few errors. Any elaboration/consolidation would probably make this article better. cprompt

[edit] Should this article be turned into a disambiguation page?

Should this article be turned into a disambiguation page? We could move the content of this article to Passover Seder, and have this page say something like this:

Seder is a Hebrew word meaning "order", and can have any of the following meanings:
  • Seder - readings of the Torah according to the ancient Palestinian triennial cycle. The divisions are called sedarim.
  • An order of prayers that constitutes a liturgy. See the article on siddur. (Example, The Seder of Rav Amram)
  • A related order of prayers within a given liturgy, for example: the sounding of the shofar.
  • The Passover seder
  • There is a holiday seder for the minor Jewish holiday of Tu_B'shevat, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat. It is known as Hemdat ha-Yamim and is modeled on the Passover seder.

I have done that. E=MC^2 T@alk

[edit] Historical origin of the Seder

Many scholars believe that the Seder has been deeply influenced by the Greek culture in which Jews lived at the time. Some even hold that the Seder is a Jewish form of a Greek symposium.

[edit] External References

[edit] References

Baruch M. Bokser The origins of the seder : the Passover rite and early rabbinic Judaism University of California Press, 1984, ISBN: 0520050061

Bokser Baruch M., Ritualizing the Seder, Jounal of the American Academy of Religion 56/1988, S.443-471.

Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, "'Not by Bread Alone...' Food and Drink in the Rabbinic Seder and in the Last Supper," special issue of Semeia 86: Food and Drink in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (ed. by Athalya Brenner and Jan Willem van Henten; 1999), 154-179 and Memorable Meals: Symposia in Luke’s Gospel, The Rabbinic Seder and the Greco-Roman Literary Tradition (forthcoming).

Henry A. Fischel, ed., Essays In Greco-Roman And Related Talmudic Literature (selected with a prolegomenon by [the editor]; New York: KTAV, 1976

Siegfried Stein, The Influence of Symposium Literature on the Literary form of the Pesah Haggadah Journal of Jewish Studies 8 (1957) pp. 13-44.

Joseph Tabory, “Towards a History of the Paschal Meal,” in Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times (Two Liturgical Traditions v.5; ed. Paul Bradshaw and Lawrence Hoffman; Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame, 1999) pp.62-80.

[edit] Meals as Midrash

The following is an excerpt from "Meals as Midrash: A Survey of Ancient Meals in Jewish Studies Scholarship" by Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, Wheaton College, MA, ©2002.

A second major contribution of Jewish Studies to meals in the Greco-Roman world is idea that the Passover seder was a Greco-Roman symposium. This thesis has opened two especially fruitful lines of inquiry, namely, about the relationship between Jewish and Hellenistic culture, and the relationship between actual meal practices and literary texts about them. Siegfried Stein’s seminal article "The Influence of Symposium Literature on the Literary form of the Pesah Haggadah," though originally published in the Journal of Jewish Studies in 1966,[13] became widely known in Jewish studies circles through its inclusion in Henry Fischel's anthology Essays In Greco-Roman And Related Talmudic Literature, a collection of essays specifically intended to break down the excessive dichotomization of "Judaism vs. Hellenism" characteristic of much previous Jewish scholarship.[14]
Stein noted that many of the features of the Passover seder, such as “the four questions,” the emphasis on reclining, the convention of talking about the food on the table or other topics related to the meal practices, games and word play, a hymn at the end (Hallel) etc. had many parallels in Greco-Roman symposium literature. However, the two most important subsequent book length treatments of the Passover seder, Bokser’s Origins of the Seder and Joseph Tabory’s Pesah Dorot (“The Passover Ritual Through the Generations”) come down on different sides of Stein’s thesis.[15] Bokser says the Passover Seder is not a symposium; Tabory says it is, as do I.[16]
The issue really at stake in this controversy is an old one: was Judaism influenced by "Hellenism?" Thus, though Bokser concedes that participation in wider Hellenistic culture was a factor "shaping [the] Passover seder and the formation of early rabbinic Judaism in general," he cannot accept Stein's argument that "symposium literature 'gave the impetus' "to the form of the Passover seder as it stands before us."[17] Rather, the internal Jewish historical crisis of the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem shaped the form of the rabbinic seder.[18] Bokser, in an approach typical of much modern Jewish critical scholarship, insists on the decisive impact of internal, autonomous Jewish factors on Jewish religious texts rather than on external Hellenistic cultural influences.
However, I see no reason why symposium conventions and the loss of the Temple in 70 C.E. could not both be decisive factors shaping the form of the early rabbinic seder. [19] In any case, I think that the thesis that the Passover seder is a symposium has done much to advance more sophisticated understandings of the profound interaction between Biblical/Jewish and Greco-Roman cultural conventions for meals. In addition the thesis has led to a deeper exploration of the relationship between meal rituals and texts about or otherwise related to them, especially in my own work.[20] Some studies of the Passover seder as a symposium seem to confuse the symposium as a performed ritual with symposium texts that are literary representations of meals.[21] Thus, they miss the important point that the literary representation of Jewish meals according to symposium literary conventions are themselves significant interpretations and transformations of experienced rituals into conceptual ideals. The Passover seder in Chapter 10 of M. Pesahim is a literary idealization of Jewish meal practices according to early rabbinic values, just as the wide variety of Socratic, encyclopedic, and satirical literary symposia, as well as sympotic lists of meal rules, and stylized meal scenes imbedded in fictional narratives are idealizations of other extra-textual Greco-Roman meal practices, according to the particular ideological values of their authors.[22]
The literary representation of symposia according to the conventions of the genres turns "actual" meal settings and practices into objects of intellectual reflection, to be contrasted with one another, to be preferred or rejected, or simply to demonstrate that proponents of the various schools represented at banquets do or do not practice what they preach.[23] Tabory and I offer broad sketches of the historical development of the literary genres of symposia in order to situate the Passover seder within them. Tabory does this to suggest that development of the Passover Haggadah from a midrash on Deut. 26:5-8: "My father was a wandering Aramean…" to the lengthy rite in m. Pesahim 10 prescribing the explanation of the foods at the table, parallels the literary development of Greco-Roman symposia...
...My bottom line: the sympotic features and form of the Passover seder were not incidental accretions or unconscious developments. The symposium literary tradition provided the composers of Mishnah Pesahim 10, as well as their ideological rivals, with a wide range of options from which to choose to idealize their characteristic communal meals. Their choices were intentional, and were recognized as such – if at the very least to distinguish their way as preferable to others....

[edit] The breakdown of the many steps

Whoever chose to break down Maggid into four distinct "tellings" --- It is nice, and I certainly agree, but I think it may stray too far from what an encylopedia should do, and get too close to what a commentary should do. Nevertheless, it is already in and I will not call for it to be deleted. I only mention it in order to contrast it with what appears in the section about Eliahu ha-Navi. We can debate whether or not to include anything about the pouring of the fifth cup, and its connection to Eliyahu, but to omit those points while including a reference to a song which does not appear in any Hagada that I've ever seen seems ludicrous. I vote for either removing this section, or at least adding something about the fifth cup, or preferably both. --Keeves 22:52, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] nquddah and daghesh

I want to pronuciations of Hebrew language. Can anyone write and point the Hebrew letter on Japanese ja:セーデル・シェル・ペサハ article with nquddah and daghesh? --Sheynhertzגעשׁ״ך 15:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] To merge or not to merge

I don't agree that the Passover Seder article should be merged with the Haggadah article. The Haggadah is only the guide to how to conduct a Seder; there are other reasons and symbolism for why the Seder is going on. However, the way this article is written, it is nothing more than another version of the Haggadah article. The rundown of each part of the service should not be the main issue here. This article needs to be rewritten with an eye to explaining the reasons and symbolism behind the Seder itself. Yoninah 23:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

  • I fully agree with Yoninah's reasoning/s. IZAK 04:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Since the opportunity to photograph a seder comes just once a year, I thought it best to bring up this point: we could show it better. I took the only picture yet on the page, and as you can see, my family's table setting is terribly casual. This Passover, please take a picture of a better one. —RadRafe 08:15, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Public Seders

In addition to private family Seders, there are many public Seders, which can be attended by anyone.

Reasons for attending public Seders vary:

* not wanting to be alone
* being away from home for work or holiday
* wanting someone else to do the cooking and cleaning up

A public Seder can be held at any type of venue:

* hotel
* restaurant
* marquis
* synagogue hall
* community centre

If you are looking for a public seder which you can attend, do search with your favourite search engined for the local Jewish community services, and contact them. Public Seders are often publicised in the local Jewish press in the few weeks prior to Passover.

The Chabad (Lubavitch) Movement offer public seders locally and around the world. Some of their seders have turned into mass seders that are the biggest in the world. The first such mass seder took place in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1989, and was attended by 350 people. Later these seders had in attendance over 1800 people at one time! The Kathmandu seder spawned other such mass seders located in places that are travel destinations for thousands of young Israelis. The Chabad website has an International Seder Directory, which helps people locate public seders wherever they are in the world!

We attended a public Seder last year (2005) at the Saatchi Synagogue in London. There were about 80 people present. Some were singles, who had no where else to go. There were some international students who were studying in London. A few were elderly couples who couldn't be bothered to make the seder at home. We were there because we didn't want to have a seder with just 2 people, but we had no one to invite. Biggybank 07:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all this information. You could either write it into the article yourself (in encyclopedic style), or wait for someone else to do it. Yoninah 07:39, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inclusive

It's worth noting that many christian churches also organize an annual Passover Seder. In addition, English & Hebrew aren't the only acceptable languages for conducting the Passover Seder. It be be done in any language. Joncnunn 21:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Yours is a very interesting note about Christian churches, and is very appropriate for the article about Passover (Christian holiday). As you can see from the talk page on Passover, the consensus is to separate Jewish and Christian observances of Passover into separate Wikipedia articles.
Regarding your second observation, it is true that the Seder can be conducted in any language, although the Halakha prescribes that it be done in Hebrew. I amended the text to include other languages, per your point. Yoninah 21:41, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I have removed additon by user:207.200.116.200, mostly these two paragraphs:

Jews born and raised in Israel, Karaite Jews, and Samaritans only observe Passover for one day, whether they are in Israel or travelling/living abroad during the holiday. Likewise, Jews who grew up observing a two-day Passover continue to do so even when if they are visiting or living in Israel during the holiday. Sephardic Jews, who may observe either a one or two-day Passover celebration, typically do a first night seder and a seventh-night seder.
The Passover seder recounts liberation and the Exodus of the Children of Israel from bondage to slavery in Ancient Egypt. In Sephardic tradition, the Exodus is actually re-enacted as a bit a seder dinner theatre. The text of seder proper is contained in a small booklet called a Haggadah. There are symbolic foods on a ritual plate, called a Seder Plate. The specific foods vary slightly between ethno-cultural traditions, but there are always six of them and all traditions use the same categories of foods (e.g., there are always two types of bitter herb, though different traditions and different families may use different particular bitter herbs); and, of course, there is always matzo. Four questions are asked during the seder. In Ashkenazic tradition, the four questions are asked by the youngest person. In Sephardic tradition, they questions are asked communally.

Firstly it is too long for an introduction. Second I have no idea who Samaritan has anything do with the seder. Sephardim don't celebrate a seder on the seventh night. Jon513 18:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

You also removed the Hebrew text that I had added. I don't know if that was on purpose or not. I won't readd it in case you meant to do that. Just wanted to let you know in case you weren't aware :) —Seqsea (talk) 20:13, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Focus on Children"

The traditional emphasis on children is of Biblical origin and is clearly stated in the Talmud. The Mishna explicitly states that the son (albeit not necessarily the youngest) asks his father the "Mah Nishtana." This is also reflected in many Sephardic halachic works (including the Shulchan Aruch).

Physical reenactment of the Exodus at the Seder exists by Ashkenazim as well (especially Chassidim), and is mentioned in many old sources.

good job. I've notice you've made a few Passover related changes. I hope your stay on wikipedia extends passed the holiday. If it does I would recommend getting a user account. Welcome. Jon513 07:59, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
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