Haggadah:Karpas/0

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Karpas

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Why Eat Karpas?

The custom known today as Karpas1 is mentioned briefly in Mishna Pesachim 10:3-4:

EN/HEע/E

(ג) הֵבִיאוּ לְפָנָיו, מְטַבֵּל בַּחֲזֶרֶת עַד שֶׁהוּא מַגִּיעַ לְפַרְפֶּרֶת הַפַּת.

The passage's language is somewhat difficult, but it appears to speak of eating or dipping2 some food before the main meal.  The Mishna mentions chazeret (lettuce) explicitly, but the truncated phrase "and they brought before him" allows for the possibility that other foods or vegetables were brought as well.  No reason is given for the custom, and at first glance it would seem to have nothing to do with Pesach and the story of the Exodus.  Why, then, has the custom been incorporated into the Seder?

First Course

In the Mishnaic period it was a common practice in Israel that festive meals began with a  series of appetizers. This is attested to in several Tannaitic passages,3 which mention assorted appetizers as being part of "סדר הסעודה". Thus, for example, Tosefta Berakhot 4:8 mentions a series of three "פרפריות" that would be served to guests in an outer hall before moving to the central dining area to eat the main course.

Such festive meals likely served as the model for the Seder,4 and thus, in its earliest stages, the "vegetable dipping" of Karpas likely had no religious significance.  It was simply the natural opening of the meal, meant to whet the appetite for later courses.5  Lettuce is mentioned explicitly, probably because it was the most common appetizer of the time,6 but  there would have been other foods eaten as well.  The Mishna's language "עַד שֶׁהוּא מַגִּיעַ לְפַרְפֶּרֶת הַפַּת" suggests that the participants continued to eat until close to the meal, not limiting themselves to a single vegetable.7 In the earliest haggadah from Eretz Yisrael yet found, this practice is still attested to, as the haggadah includes four different blessings to be made at Karaps: "בורא פגי האדמה", "בורא פרי העץ", "בורא מיני מעדנים", and "בורא מיני נפשות".8

Sign for the Children

In Amoraic literature, a different explanation of the custom appears.  Bavli Pesachim 114a and 116a imply that the first dipping/eating was instituted only so that the children will ask: "כי היכי דליהוי היכירא לתינוקות".‎9  This new understanding stems from the different forms that meals took in Babylonia and Israel. The dipping of an appetizer was not usual outside of Israel, so the Bavli did not see being "מְטַבֵּל בַּחֲזֶרֶת" as a normal part of the meal, and needed to explain its presence in the Seder. Thus, the gemara posits that the custom, like other exceptional acts performed throughout the evening, was instituted only to provoke questioning.

From "חזרת" to "שאר ירקות" to "כרפס"

A second development in the Aromaic period is the institution of using "other vegetables" rather than  lettuce for the first dipping.  Using lettuce had created two halakhic questions: If one ate חזרת before the meal, was the obligation of maror already fulfilled, or did it need to be eaten again?10  Second, when should the blessing of "על אכילת מרור" be said, when one first ate of the chazeret, or only later?11  To remove themselves from doubt, several Babylonian rabbis12 suggested eating vegetables other than lettuce for the first dipping.13  In their wake, several post Talmudic authorities similarly rule that it is preferable to use a "non bitter" vegetable.14 Among those suggested by Machzor Vitri is "karpas" or celery. This apparently became the preferred option in Rashi's circles, as his "סימני הסדר" mentions "כרפס" as the third sign. With time, this became the universal term for the custom, even when karpas was not used as the dipped vegetable.

Derashot on Karpas

In the aftermath of the widespread usage of the name karpas, new understandings of the custom emerged, each an attempt to connect the term with Pesach. 

  • Thus,  R. Asher of Lunil suggests that כרפס spelled backwards stands for "סבלונות פרך", recalling the back breaking labor of the Israelites in Egypt.15
  • The Sefer HaMenuchah asserts instead that כרפס recalls the  כתונת פסים that Ya'akov made for Yosef, which began the chain of events leading to the descent to Egypt.16