Dipping! What’s Up With That?

Let’s face it. Eating is fun and enjoyable particularly when we do it together with our family and friends. In God’s infinite wisdom, he structured a very important activity around a meal. On the first night of Pesach,  2 nights outside of Israel, we gather around a beautifully set dining room table. Why?

Family discussions at the dinner table are a common occurrence. On Pesach night we are commanded to converse about the values and lessons of our unique way of life: its history, laws, customs, culture, and philosophy. In a word, we are gathered on this night to pass on our unique Mesorah, מסורה. The generation that has this knowledge is obligated to impart it to the up-and-coming generation. The model or paradigm for this process is a father teaching his children and God knows, food always brings out the crowd.

Ask any teacher and s/he will tell you that the best way to initiate learning is by getting students to ask questions. If you arouse and create curiosity, the student(s) will be engaged in the conversation and process of discovery to find the answer. So how does the required transmission proceed at the Seder? The trick is to do something different and unusual that will capture the interest in all those present to ask spontaneous questions. Children, again, are just the paradigm; we want “children of all ages,” ala PT Barnum, to get involved at the Seder.

Maimonides in his Laws of Chometz and Matzah tells us that after Kiddush, “We are to make many changes tonight so children will see and ask, ‘why or what are all these changes about?’” Even better is to stimulate a higher-level question, one directly about Pesach and/or the mitzvot of tonight. That is no small task for any teacher or leader of the Seder.

The Sages of the Talmud were master educators. They created an activity for us to do to get the Seder going.  Normally, after saying Kiddush at the start of Shabbat or Yom Tov, we wash our hands and go right to the “hamotzi,” the blessing on the bread.  However, at this meal, the rabbis changed things up. They instituted something different to do. After Kiddush, we bring out an hors d’oeuvre, the “karpas,” a vegetable that we dip into salt water and eat. This is very unusual. After feigning the beginning of our meal by eating an hors d’oeuvre and placing a plate in front of the leader with all our dinner foods on it: matzah, maror, 2 cooked foods, and charoset, we remove the Seder plate and pour a second cup of wine as though we completed the meal. Wait a minute! Did we miss something? Where did my food go? (YouTube comedian Sebastian Maniscalco for a humorous bit on the Seder)

All those activities are formalized by law for the start of the Seder. We must do them. They are designed to arouse curiosity in our children. However, the concept of “karpas” is not complete until you provoke a spontaneous or original question. The Talmud Pesachim 116a says at this point in the Seder, “Here the child asks.”  

My father, of blessed memory, one time left the Seder for a minute and came back wearing his tuxedo. One great Torah scholar put a pot on his head. Maimonides suggests grabbing matzot from each other. The dinner guests already performed a change when they reclined while drinking the first cup of wine for Kiddush. Many leaders have the custom to don a white robe, “kittle,” before reciting the Kiddush. Here is one innovation I have used in the past.  Ask everyone to please pass their Haggadah to the left (or right) and repeat passing it until someone finally asks, “what are we doing?” Now the Seder can begin! Certainly, in America where we have two Sedorim, you will need to do something different for the 2nd night.

Why do we do all these things?  We make changes precisely to get everyone, children and learners of all ages, to ask their own spontaneous questions. We want people to ask about everything they read in the Haggadah, see on the table, eat, and do. We want those gathered for the Seder to be curious and attentive so that when we get to the actual telling of the story and discussion of the mitzvoth, they will be curious and ask questions about them. Then we are truly fulfilling the command “to tell your children on that night…” The raison d’etre, the purpose and goal of the Seder, to pass on our Mesorah, “מסורה” can now commence.

What if we do stimulate questions? The Rabbis took care of that problem as well. One of the most anticipated performances, a true crowd pleaser, and one which makes every parent “kvell” and “shep nachas,” pardon my Askenazic vernacular, is the reciting of the מה נשתנה at the Seder by the youngest child. Ever wonder why the מה נשתנה was inserted into the Haggadah at this point in the Seder? Also, how many questions are there in the מה נשתנה? Do all opinions agree that it is the youngest who recites the מה נשתנה?

The Sages of the Talmud created the מה נשתנה and placed it at the beginning of the Seder. It is formulaic but notice it is structured as a question and answer. We can make one logical deduction. The rabbis, as educators par excellence, designed the Seder so that it must begin with a question. If we don’t bring out a spontaneous or original question by all our contrivances, the rabbis gave us the מה נשתנה.  They knew questioning is the best way for learning and the transference of the Mesorah to take place.

How many questions are there? Many scholars suggest the answer is one!  What are the ways this night is unique from all other nights? Hopefully a child or guest will ask h/her own question after doing these unusual actions prior to the מה נשתנה; but if not, the Rabbis built one, or four, into the start of the Seder.

Since Pesach is the night of transmitting our heritage, the Rambam says the leader of the Seder should pose this question to his child just as a teacher would to his class. After the participants offer their possibilities, the leader/teacher then outlines the unique differences and the special mitzvot for tonight. The Rambam holds that the leader or elder at the Seder recites the מה נשתנה. It is like the teacher stating the goals for the lesson at the beginning of the unit. “This is what we will be learning about tonight: the redemption of our ancestors and the concepts of matzah and maror. This is why we are gathered here tonight. Yes, we will have a delicious meal but first, we must discuss these important concepts.”

So, what is dipping? What are we doing at karpas? Sorry to say but it has nothing to do with Springtime. What mitzvah are we accomplishing with the step in the Seder known as “Karpas?” It is the initiation, one prescribed way “how” to perform the mitzvah of “telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt on the first night of Pesach.” But “dipping” represents much more.  In Judaism, questioning is an indispensable step in the learning and transmission process for which the Seder was truly designed. Questions are the gateway to knowledge.

If we want to pass on Judaism to the next generation, we must find ways to excite and engage those seated around the table to explore all aspects of our unique religion. It is a big challenge considering the disparate ages of those gathered, reminiscent of the one-room schoolhouse of bygone years. And as every teacher knows, the more a student questions and understands the more likely it is that the student will internalize and live by the ideas and values learned.

I would love to hear what you did to stimulate questions at your Seder.

Wishing the entire Posnack Family and readership a joyous Pesach and a Chag Kasher v’Sameach,

Rabbi Robert Kaplan