mesubin

I had thought of writing a post on mesubin over two years ago - when I started this site. We are all familiar with the fourth question at the Seder:

שֶׁבְּכָל הַלֵּילוֹת אָנוּ אוֹכְלִין בֵּין יוֹשְבִין וּבֵין מְסוּבִּין, הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה כּוּלָנוּ מְסוּבִּין.

This is generally translated as "On all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night, we all recline." However, I recalled hearing or reading an explanation that said that mesubin in this case might mean "gathered around" and not "reclining".

So for two years this sat in my queue, until this year. And in the spirit of of the Haggadah, I decided to ask a question of my own: What was the original meaning of mesubin and when did it come to mean reclining? I asked this question of many experts - some regular readers of this site, others well known researchers. While I can't thank them all individually here - I would like to express my appreciation for all of their help.

So let's start explaining the term mesubin - מסובין (I'll discuss the vowelization of the word, with couple of alternatives at the end of the post.) I will review in parallel both the meaning of the word, and the practice of reclining.

Biblical Period: The root of the word mesubin is סבב, which appears frequently in Biblical Hebrew. However, it almost always means "surround, encircle, turn around." There are only two verses where it might be related to dining. One is Shir HaShirim 1:12 - עַד-שֶׁהַמֶּלֶךְ, בִּמְסִבּוֹ. While most translations have "while the king was at his table", Kaddari says it means "at his circle."

The other verse is from Shmuel I, and might be able to teach us more about the origin of the word. In chapter 16, the prophet Shmuel is visiting the family of Yishai, looking for the future king. The family is reluctant to bring the youngest brother, David, but Shmuel insists that they bring him. In verse 11, he says to bring David - כִּי לֹא-נָסֹב עַד-בֹּאוֹ פֹה. There are commentaries that explain this verse as "we will not continue (i.e. turn away) until he comes." But most translations offer "we will not sit down to eat until he comes". On the assumption that they were not going to be reclining on beds (as we will see shortly), the literal meaning would have been "sit around the table to eat". The association with reclining developed later.

Did they recline at meals in Biblical times? First of all, it is important to understand that the reclining we are discussing is not the leaning that we do today at the Seder. To eat while reclining meant reclining on a bed, with a small table below the bed for each diner. (Some pictures of this can be seen here.) However, as Meir Ish-Shalom points out in his commentary on the Haggadah Meir Ayin, the ideal images of dining in the Tanach involved all the participants in the meal sitting around one table:

בָּנֶיךָ, כִּשְׁתִלֵי זֵיתִים-- סָבִיב, לְשֻׁלְחָנֶךָ. - "Your sons, like olive saplings around your table" (Tehillim 128:3)

טָבְחָה טִבְחָהּ, מָסְכָה יֵינָהּ; אַף, עָרְכָה שֻׁלְחָנָהּ. - "She has prepared the feast, mixed the wine, and also set the table" (Mishlei 9:2)

The earliest examples of reclining at a meal are from the book of Amos. However, the practice is viewed as decadent and is highly criticized by the prophet:

וְעַל-בְּגָדִים חֲבֻלִים יַטּוּ, אֵצֶל כָּל-מִזְבֵּחַ; וְיֵין עֲנוּשִׁים יִשְׁתּוּ, בֵּית אֱלֹהֵיהֶם - "They recline by every altar on garments taken in pledge, and drink wine bought with fines they imposed, in the house of their god " (2:8)

הַשֹּׁכְבִים עַל-מִטּוֹת שֵׁן, וּסְרֻחִים עַל-עַרְשׂוֹתָם; וְאֹכְלִים כָּרִים מִצֹּאן, וַעֲגָלִים מִתּוֹךְ מַרְבֵּק - "They lie on ivory beds, lolling on their couches, feasting on lambs from the flock and on calves from the stalls".

The prophet Yechezkel also criticizes the practice: וְיָשַׁבְתְּ עַל-מִטָּה כְבוּדָּה, וְשֻׁלְחָן עָרוּךְ לְפָנֶיהָ - "you sat on a grand couch with a set table in front of it" (23:41).

By the time we get to the book of Esther, the practice was viewed more neutrally, and we find Esther reclining on a bed: וְהָמָן נֹפֵל עַל-הַמִּטָּה אֲשֶׁר אֶסְתֵּר עָלֶיהָ - "Haman fell on the bed where Esther reclined" (7:8). In fact, Ish-Shalom claims that the common practice of reclining at meals began during the Persian period, and from Persia spread to Greece and Rome.

Post Biblical Period: In the Book of Ben-Sira (9:11) we first find the certain association of סבב and reclining. (Segal says that perhaps here it is already in the hif'il form, which is the form we are familiar with - mesubin and haseiba.) Guggenheimer quotes 41:19 - "With a married woman do not lie on the elbow, and do not lie on a couch- אל תסב עמה- with her mixing drinks." Based on the verse from Shmuel above, we can say that perhaps the meaning changed from "sit around and eat" to "recline and eat" - because that was the common way of eating. Another possibility is that the root סבב developed from "revolve", to "rotate", to "recline".

Period of the Mishna: By Greek and Roman times, reclining was the only proper way for free people to eat (primarily men for the Greeks, with the Romans we also find women reclining more). The Targumim (Onkelos and Yonatan) translated nearly every verse which included sitting and eating with the Aramaic root סחר - by which they meant "reclining", which was the practice when the Targumim were composed. (The exception that Ish-Shalom brings is Yechezkel 44:3, since it refers to sitting and eating before God, where reclining would not have been respectful). This root is identical with סבב - both mean "to turn, surround". However, it is not clear to me that the root סחר independently means "to recline" in Aramaic. I have only found its use in translations, and it seems to me they were perhaps trying to use a word that was similar to סבב. Rav Hai Gaon on Brachot 42b (mentioned also in the Arukh, as well as a number of Rishonim) uses the translations of Onkelos on Bereshit 37:25 and 43:33 as proof that the Hebrew word mesubin originally meant "to sit around the bread". He doesn't mention reclining at all.

There was a rather elaborate method of proper dining that involved reclining. From here we get the word mesiba מסיבה - a festive meal which naturally included reclining. This type of meal is referred to in the Mishna in Pirkei Avot (4:21):

רבי יעקוב אומר, העולם הזה דומה לפרוזדוד בפני העולם הבא; התקן עצמך בפרוזדוד, כדי שתיכנס לטרקלין.

"Rabbi Yaakov said: This world is like a vestibule before the world to come; prepare yourself in the vestibule that you may enter the banquet hall [traklin]". The word traklin, which in some manuscripts is spelled טריקלין - triklin, comes from the Latin triclinium and Greek triklinion - "a dining room with three couches". The Tosefta (Brachot 4:8) explains more about what happened before entering the triclinium:

כיצד סדר הסעודה אורחין נכנסין ויושבין על גבי ספסלים וע"ג קתדראות עד שיכנסו כולן נכנסו כולן ונתנו להם לידים כל אחד ואחד נוטל ידו אחת מזגו להם את הכוס אחד ואחד מברך לעצמו הביאו להם פרפריות כל אחד ואחד מברך לעצמו עלו והסיבו נתנו להם לידים אע"פ שנוטל ידו אחת נותן לשתי ידיו מזגו להם את הכוס אע"פ שבירך על הראשונה מברך על השניה הביאו לפניהם פרפריות אע"פ שבירך על הראשונה מברך על השניה ואחד מברך לכולן [הביאו לאחד] שלש פרפריות אין [לו] רשות ליכנס

What is the order of the meal? The guests enter [the house] and sit on benches, and on chairs until all have entered. They all enter and they [servants] give them water for their hands. Each one washes one hand. They [servants] pour for them the cup; each one says the blessing for himself. They [servants] bring them the appetizers; each one says the blessing for himself. They [guests] go up [to the dining room] and they recline, for they [servants] give them [water] for their hands; although they have washed one hand, they now wash both hands. They [servants] pour for them the cup; although they have said the blessing over the first cup, they say a blessing also over the second. They [servants] bring them the dessert; although they said a blessing over the first one, they now say the blessing over the second, and one says the blessing for all of them. He who comes after the third course has no right to enter.

This Tosefta can help us understand the first Mishna of the tenth chapter of Pesachim. It says there:

ערב פסחים סמוך למנחה, לא יאכל אדם עד שתחשך. אפילו עני שבישראל, לא יאכל עד שיסב

"Pesach eve close to mincha, one may not eat until it becomes dark. And even a poor person in Israel may not eat unless he reclines."

The above translation is from the English Kehati, and it reflects the common understanding of the Mishna. But Tabori in his book Pesach Dorot, has a different understanding, in light of the above Tosefta. Since reclining was practiced at every meal, there didn't need to be a specific instruction to do so at the Seder. Rather the Mishna was telling the participants that they could not eat until (not unless) they recline. There could be no appetizers before the Seder meal as there were in other meals throughout the year.

Talmudic Period: In the times of the Amoraim, particularly in Bavel, reclining at meals was no longer the norm, but only an elite few practiced it. Haseiba had previously represented an established meal (unlike "casual" sitting). That status had been replaced by the significance of a number of diners sitting around one table (which indicated a communal meal). So the Amoraim interpreted the mishna in Pesachim to mean that reclining was an obligation in and of itself, because it represented a sign of freedom and high status. From here we get the halachic discussion about which parts of the seder require haseiva.

Geonim: By now reclining was so uncommon in ordinary meals, that it was regulated to the Seder. This was the time when the fourth question was formulated: "On all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, but on this night, we all recline." (Ironically, they didn't really recline any other nights, but then again, they didn't probably eat much matza other nights of the year as well.) As the Vilna Gaon pointed out - that question was not included in the Mishna, since reclining was the common way of eating at that time. (Rav Kasher in the Haggadah Shleimah p. 115-6 has an entirely different approach, which Goldschmidt challenges in his Haggadah - p. 13, note 18).

Rishonim: By this point, reclining was viewed as so foreign that a number of Rishonim suggested dropping it from the Seder altogether, as it no longer even represented freedom or high status. However, due to the fact that the "strange" behavior could encourage children to ask questions, haseiva is still widely practiced today.

Modern Hebrew: We seem to have returned to our Biblical roots. Today mesubim מסובים means "diners, participants in a meal", and a mesiba means "party" with no reclining necessary. Perhaps even a better use of mesiba would be mesibat itonaim מסיבת עתונאים - "press conference", which describes a gathering where people are surrounding the speaker.

A note about the pronunciation: The early acharon R' Shabtai Sofer, quoting R' Yosef Kimchi (the father of the Radak) writes that the word מסבין should be pronounced musabin - like the מוּסַבֹּת that appears in Bamidbar 32:38. He claims that the common vowelization mesubin is likely a scribal error.

However, the Teimanim spell the word meisabin, as described here:

In the "Mah Nishtanah" in some Yemenite Haggadah texts the two forms messubin (מְסוּבִּין) and meissabin (מֵיסַבִּין) both appear in the following sequence: "bein yoshvim uvein m'ssubin" בין יושבין ובין מסובין (whether sitting or reclining), "wahalaylah hazeh kulanu meissabin" והלילה הזה כלנו מיסבין (but this night we all recline). In other texts the form m'ssubin appears twice as it does in the versions of Rav Sa'adiah Gaon and Maimonides. One Yemenite scholar - Rabbi Yechiya Bashiri who lived in the 16th century - saw this differentiation in form as a definite semantic difference, as well. He noted: "m'ssubin" (מסובין) – "they assembled, and "meisabin" (מיסבין) - in the sense of "reclining," since it was the custom of the sons of the kings to recline on their left sides. This Yemenite scholar interpreted "m'ssubin" (מְסוּבִּין) to mean "coming together," and "meisabin" מֵיסַבִּין as "reclining" (from the Hebrew "hasibah"הַסִּיבָּה ), or sitting at the table in a slightly reclined position, in the manner of a free man.

Both of the forms in question come from the root samoch - bet - bet סבב in the "hiphil" construction. The form m'ssubin מסובין should have been m'ssibin מסיבין (as in the root qof - lamed – lamedקלל : meikelמיקל / m'kilimמקילים ) How then did the form m'ssubin actually come into being? What we have here is a distinctive linguistic - phonetic phenomenon called assimilation, accordingly the chirak (ִ) in the letter samoch (ס) becomes a "u" sound in order to assimilate to the labial consonant which follows it immediately [ב=bet]: missibin > m'ssubin.

The form meisabin (מֵיסַבִּין) which is found in the Yemenite Haggadah may possibly be explained as another example of the preservation of a basic vowel form, specifically, the vowelized singular from meisav מֵיסַב (as it appears in the Yemenite tradition, as opposed to meiseiv מֵיסֵב as it is pronounced by other communities ) was left in its place in the plural form, as well (and not replaced by a shva) thus producing the form meisabin.

Despite the convincing arguments of R' Shabtai Sofer on the one hand, and the Yemenite scholars on the other, Kohut in the Aruch Hashalem justifies the common pronunciation mesubin. He writes that from the term mesiba was derived the single participant mesuba מסובה. The plural of that should be מסוביין mesubayin, but this became assimilated to mesubin.

leil shimurim

In the book of Shmot (12:42) we find a very well known description of the night of (or preceding) the Exodus and describing all future Seder nights:

לֵיל שִׁמֻּרִים הוּא לַה', לְהוֹצִיאָם מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם: הוּא-הַלַּיְלָה הַזֶּה לַה', שִׁמֻּרִים לְכָל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְדֹרֹתָם.

The JPS translates this verse as follows:

"That was for the Lord a night of vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt; that same night is the Lord's, one of vigil for all the children of Israel throughout the ages".

There are many explanations and interpretations of ליל שמורים leil shimurim - "night of vigil". They generally are based on the idea that the root שמר means "to watch, keep, protect" - but who was watching who and when? Was God watching the Jews? Are the Jews to keep the holiday? Is there still protection on that night? I won't go into all these issues, but Sarna points out an interesting irony. The Talmud notes that on the night of Pesach the Jews are under greater protection, however during the Middle Ages in Christian Europe, they actually had to be more vigilant, for the Christians would accuse them with the blood libel specifically on Pesach night.

However, this is not the only way to understand "leil shimurim". The Ramban hints to a different approach in his commentary (Chavel translation):

The intent of this is "that this night set aside by God to bring Israel out of Egypt is unto the Eternal. That is to say, it is to be sanctified to His Name. [It is] a night of watching for all the children of Israel throughout their generations, meaning that they are to observe it by worshiping Him through the eating of the Passover-offering, the remembering of the miracles, and the reciting of praise and thanksgiving to His name", just as He said And thou shalt keep this ordinance (Shmot 13:10) And He further said, Observe the month of Aviv, and keep the Passover (Devarim 16:1).

Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra explained that the intent of the expression, It was a night of watching unto the Eternal, is that God watched the Israelites and did not suffer the destroyer to come into their homes. This is not correct, since Scripture continues to state, It was a night of watching ... for bringing them out from the Land of Egypt.

The Ramban is saying here that leil shimurim means more than just that the Jews were protected on that night, but rather on that night they need to eat the Pesach sacrifice, remember the miracles and praise God - in other words, the Seder experience. Kaddari, in addition to quoting the Ramban, points out that shimurim has an Arabic cognate that means "stay awake all night" (this could of course be connected back to the word shomer meaning "guard", for guards stay awake all night.)

Goldschmidt in his Haggadah, quotes Derenbourg as saying that the Arabic word samara means to "entertain all night", and the Bedouins sit in front of their tents at night talking in what is called Samaroun. If the linguistic connection is accurate, then the story of the Rabbis staying up all night discussing the Exodus has a strong basis in the phrase leil shimurim.

The root שמר has many derivatives in Hebrew, most of them with a clear connection to each other: shomer שומר - "guard", shamran שמרן - "conservative", mishamer משמר - "preservative". However, I had trouble connecting one particular word, shmarim שמרים - "yeast", to this set.

Passing Phrase also has trouble making a connection, and provides this conjecture:

The root of the word "meshamer" is ShMR, which means watch or keep. Anything that is made to stay a long time is called "meshumar" (Jerusalem Talmud Pesachim 34). In modern Hebrew, products in cans which can stick around until the next war or electrical outage would be called "shemurim." Long life milk would be "chalav meshumar" or "chalav amid." Interesting enough, from the same root, we have the word for yeast, "shemarim." I guess it's related because it has to be watched after you add it to the dough.

While it's a good guess, I don't think it's accurate historically.

We find the word shemarim in a few locations in the Bible, and throughout Rabbinic literature as well. In all of these sources, it only means "lees, dregs" - the residue remaining after wine ferments. Klein connects this word back to the root שמר - meaning "to keep" - what is "kept" after the fermentation process. (As an aside, my kids tend to mix up the concept of שמר as "saving" and "watching". When we say we're going out for the night, they often ask "Who will save on us?", a literal translation of מי ישמור עלינו - "who will watch us?".)

Now it's true that yeast is what creates the fermentation, and the residue is formed of dead yeast. But the origin of the word shemarim seems to indicate that it always meant "residue, remnant", and never meant active yeast. Additionally, Ben Yehuda's dictionary does not include one source that mentions shemarim in the context of baking bread or cakes, although this is the common meaning in Modern Hebrew (Even-Shoshan defines shemarim first as yeast, second as lees.). I do see that according to the Hebrew Language Academy site, in a 1938 dictionary of kitchen terms has refernce to shemarim as yeast, and ugat shmarim עוגת שמרים as yeast cake. But it is not clear to me why Ben Yehuda didn't include this meaning. I'd be very happy to hear from any readers who can show me a source that discusses the development of the word.

In the meantime, I did find this interesting post by Orrin Tilevitz on Mail-Jewish, which discusses a common misconception - that yeast is forbidden on Pesach:

To the extent this myth exists - and I don't know anybody who thinks baking soda and baking powder are inherently not kosher for Passover - it may be a result of the widespread mistranslation of the word "se'or" (see, e.g., Exodus 12:15). Beginning with the King James and continuing through the original JPS and the current Art Scroll translations, the word is rendered as "leavening", which could include baking powder and soda - or, for that matter, egg whites. I once spoke to an Orthodox rabbi who told me that "se'or" meant yeast, and therefore yeast was inherently prohibited on Pesach. (My response was to ask whether he drank wine on Pesach, a question lost on him because he seemed not to understand what fermentation was.) But se'or doesn't mean any of these things. It actually means "sourdough starter" (see, e.g., Rav Saadia Gaon's commentary, and the supercommentary on it, in Torat Chaim), which is a mixture of flour, water and yeast spores from that air, that is left to ferment, in the process of which the yeast grows. AFIK, until recent times sourdough starter was the leavening agent in bread; bakers in chazal's era did not have yeast as a separate product.

So perhaps Ben Yehuda wasn't aware of yeast as we know it today (despite the relatively short gap between his death in 1922 and the publication of that cookbook in 1938.)

arami oved avi

The midrashic section of the Haggadah opens with a midrash on the verse (Devarim 26:5):

אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה, וַיָּגָר שָׁם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט; וַיְהִי-שָׁם, לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל עָצוּם וָרָב.

The Haggadah explains:

צא ולמד!

מה בקש לבן הארמי לעשות ליעקב אבינו, שפרעה הרשע לא גזר אלא על הזכרים ולבן בקש לעקור את הכל, שנאמר: "ארמי אובד אבי וירד מצרימה ויגר שם"

Go and learn what Lavan the Aramean wanted to do to our father Yaakov. For Pharoah had issued a decree only against the males, but Lavan wanted to uproot everyone, as it says "The Aramean sought to destroy my father; and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there.."

We see that the Haggadah translates the alliterative phrase arami oved avi as "An Aramean (Lavan) (wanted) to destroy my father". This explanation has ancient roots and is mirrored in other Midrashim, Targum Onkelos and the teamim. But the plain meaning of the text suggests a different translation:

"My father was a wandering Aramean".

The Rashbam says the verse refers to Avraham, whereas Ibn Ezra states that the "father" was Yaakov, and explains (translation from Nechama Leibowitz's Haggadah):

The verb "oved" אובד is an intransitive verb (does not take an object). If the verse were referring to Lavan, it would read "ma'avid" מאביד or "me'abed" מאבד ... But it is more logical that the Arami is Yaakov and the verse is saying that when my father was in Aram, he was poor.

The question then remains, why did the Haggadah (and others) feel the need to explain the verse contrary to its plain meaning?

Louis Finkelstein provided an interesting answer in his article The Oldest Midrash: Pre-Rabbinic Ideals and Teachings in the Passover Haggadah (see also this review of the article.) He claims that this midrash is very old, dating back to the Hellenestic rule of the Middle East, when after Alexander the Great's death, his kingdom was split up between the Seleucids in Syria and the Ptolemies in Egypt. He felt that the midrash (M) was trying to paint the Syrians (from Aram) in harsher light and soften the criticism of the Egyptians:

The daring perversion of the reading of the Scriptures can be explained only on one of two hypotheses. (A) It may have been an expression of Maccabean hostility toward Syria, which was identified with Aram. (B) It may be an effort, made while Palestine was under Egyptian suzerainty, to placate the Egyptian government, by denouncing its rival, Syria. It was particularly necessary to do this before telling the story of the Exodus, which recalled unpleasant relations between Egypt and Israel.

Of the two hypotheses, the second seems to me the more plausible, for several reasons which will soon become apparent. Of these, the most important is the fact that the Septuagint, which was composed by Jews under Egyptian rule, likewise perverts the meaning of the words 'arami 'obed 'abi. Its texts render the phrase as though it read 'aram y'obed (or ye'abed) 'abi, which is forced into the sense of "My father forsook Aram." Apparently the authors of the Septuagint, like the compiler of M, hesitated to identify the ancestor of the Jews as an Aramaean. The close relationship between the Septuagint translation and the interpretation put on the phrase 'arami 'obed 'abi in M is a definite indication that the two works were composed under similar circumstances, that is in the third century B.C., and under Egyptian control.

Finkelstein's theory is rejected by Goldschmidt in his Haggadah. He disagrees with Finkelstein's overall approach for reasons I won't go into here, but he writes that both explanations of the verse were known by the Rabbis - they both appear side by side in the Sifrei. However, it is not clear to me from Goldschmidt as to why this explanation was chosen for the Haggadah.

Perhaps Tigay's more modest explanation in JPS Devarim would be accepted. He points out that the Arameans of Damascus were hostile to the Israel already in the ninth century BCE, and therefore:

This interpretation, found in the Pesah Haggadah and reflected in the Septuagint and the targums, is due, perhaps, to a disbelief that the Bible would describe one of Israel's ancestors as an Aramean.

Tigay also mentions that the phrase "arami oved" might mean "fugitive Aramean", based on Assyrian inscriptions which refer to "Arame ... munnabtu" - "fugitive Aramean". Shmuel and Zeev Safrai, in their Haggadat Chazal, quote Chaim Rabin as writing that from other ancient inscriptions the word Arami meant "merchant" - so maybe the verse meant "my father was a traveling salesman"?

Whether the root אבד means "to lose (or to be lost)" or "to destroy" has an interesting impact on our understanding of Megilat Esther as well. According to Rav David Moriah of Efrat (see this article) Rav Yaakov Medan says that when Haman presented his plan to Achashverosh, he only said that the Jews were a different people who kept their own laws, and (Esther 3:9) -

אִם-עַל-הַמֶּלֶךְ טוֹב, יִכָּתֵב לְאַבְּדָם

"If it pleases the king, let it be written that they be lost".

According to Medan, the verb אבד only meant to assimilate them, to remove their special rights, so they wouldn't be considered a separate people. But Haman's plan was to destroy and exterminate them (3:13) -

לְהַשְׁמִיד לַהֲרֹג וּלְאַבֵּד אֶת-כָּל-הַיְּהוּדִים

"To destroy, to kill and to 'lose' all the Jews".

This helps to explain a somewhat difficult passage in the story. When Esther pleads for the lives of the Jews before the king and Haman, she says (7:4) -

כִּי נִמְכַּרְנוּ אֲנִי וְעַמִּי, לְהַשְׁמִיד לַהֲרוֹג וּלְאַבֵּד; וְאִלּוּ לַעֲבָדִים וְלִשְׁפָחוֹת נִמְכַּרְנוּ, הֶחֱרַשְׁתִּי

"For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, massacred and 'lost'. Had we only been sold as slaves, I would have kept silent"

In other words, had Haman's plan, as presented to the king, been carried out, she wouldn't have protested. But she could not remain silent when her people were to be killed!

And here, the king replies (7:5) -

מִי הוּא זֶה וְאֵי-זֶה הוּא, אֲשֶׁר-מְלָאוֹ לִבּוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹת כֵּן.

"Who is he and where is he who dared to do this?"

For the king had no idea of Haman's real plan. However, if we were to think that אבד meant "to kill" - then the king comes off as a real fool, for he was the one that made the agreement with Haman. But a proper understanding of אבד helps us understand the entire story.

seder

We're all familiar with the seder סדר on Pesach, but the word seder in regards to the Pesach meal only appears first in Rashi's Sefer HaOrah. We find seder - meaning "arrangement" - in the Mishna in a context that is not exactly kosher for Passover - in the description of the lechem hapanim (showbread) in Masechet Menachot, chapter 2.

In the Torah (Vayikra 24:6) where it discusses the lechem hapanim it uses the synonym maarechet מערכת - meaning "set, row". Onkelos translates maarechet into Aramaic as seder, and both verbs - ערך and סדר - have the same meaning - "to order, arrange".

Other meanings of seder and sidra סדרה in Rabbinic Hebrew relate to an order or set of items - the sidrot - weekly Torah portions, the six sedarim of the Mishna, and the seder hamazalot סדר המזלות - the constellations. We also find in Rabbinic Hebrew reference to seder hatefila סדר התפילה - the order of the prayers (Rosh Hashana 17b), but the more common word for the prayerbook, siddur סידור, does not appear until Medieval times.

The word seder only appears once in the Tanach - in Iyov 10:22 as סדרים sedarim. There are those that feel that the word seder entered Hebrew from Aramaic, and is also related to the Akkadian sadaru.

Another theory is that seder is related to the Hebrew word שדרה - sdera - also meaning "row" and in Melachim II 11:8 means "a row of soldiers". In modern Hebrew it also means "boulevard, avenue" and Sderot שדרות is a town in Southern Israel famous for being attacked by Kassam rockets. It got its name from the rows of trees planted there at the founding of the State.

A common mistake in Hebrew is to pronounce שדרה as shdera and שדרות as Shderot (the latter has 12,000 hits on Google, with 300 on official government sites!) This is probably due to a confusion with the word שידרה shidra - "spinal column, backbone" - which also has a sense of something straight. However, according to Klein, shidra has a very different etymology: it is related to the word שזרה shizra (dalet and zayin can interchange), also meaning "backbone", which comes from the root שזר - "to interweave, intertwine, twist".

herut and uhura

Pesach is known as zman heruteinu זמן חרותינו - "the time of our freedom". Where does the word herut (cherut) חרות - freedom - come from?

It does not appear in Biblical sources, but shows up first in Rabbinic Hebrew. However, we do find chorim חורים - "nobles" in some of the later books of the Bible (e.g. Nechemia 2:16, Melachim I 21:8, Kohelet 10:17). The Daat Mikra on those verses says that the nobles were free from paying taxes. A different origin is provided by Ben Yehuda, who quotes Ibn Genach as saying that the word chorim derives from חור chur - meaning white (as in the white linen in Ester 1:6, and related to chiver חוור - "pale".) The idea here is that white was considered a color representing light and greatness. Jastrow makes a connection between white garments and (the garments of) freedom.

Whatever the origin, we are familiar with the Rabbinic phrase ben chorin בן-חורין from the Hagada as well - "a free man". Another verb taken from the same root in Rabbinic Hebrew is שחרר - "to liberate" (although we find the verb חרר as well).

Arabic has a cognate to herut: hurruyyah - also meaning "freedom, liberty". From Arabic, the word entered the Swahili language as uhuru - meaning "freedom". Uhuru was adopted by African Socialist movements in the 1960s, and this apparently caught the eye of Gene Roddenberry when he created the character Uhura in the original Star Trek series (and in one episode Spock says that Uhura means "freedom".)

hazeret

Last year we discussed maror; now let's talk about a vegetable that can be used for maror - חזרת hazeret (or chazeret).

The Mishna in Pesachim (2:6) lists a number of vegetables that can be used to fulfill one's obligation on the night of Pesach - and includes in the list hazeret. The gemara there (39a) translates hazeret from Hebrew into Aramaic - chasa חסא - lettuce. Rashi also identifies hazeret as lettuce - using the French word laitugue, which is related to the English word lettuce.

So how did hazeret come to be used for horseradish in Modern Hebrew? According to Dr. Yehuda Feliks here, when the Jews moved further East in Europe, lettuce was no longer available for Pesach. The Chacham Tzvi (1656-1718) wrote that the Jews of Ashkenaz and Poland would use tamcha תמכא for maror, because they couldn't find hazeret. Tamcha is one of the other vegetables listed in the mishna as acceptable, and the Tosfot Yom Tov (1579-1654) identifies it with horseradish (a relatively late identification- the Rambam identifies it with a type of chicory and Rashi translates it as Marrubium vulgare - horehound). Horseradish is known as chrain in Yiddish - the origin of the word is unknown, but it has many cognates in European languages. However, over time the word hazeret became associated with horseradish instead of tamcha. This entered Modern Hebrew as well, despite the availability of lettuce. However, lettuce seems like a better fit, because horseradish is not as bitter as it is sharp, and the Yerushalmi on Pesachim says that hazeret starts out sweet and ends bitter (like the Jews' experience in Egypt) - a much better description of lettuce than horseradish. For more about the development of the use of horseradish for maror, read this interesting article by Ari Zivitofsky (thanks to Parshablog for the link).

Interestingly, none of the sources I looked at - Jastrow, Ben Yehuda, Klein - offer an etymology for hazeret, despite the easily identifiable root of חזר (to return). I do suspect, however, that there are many drashot out there...

chametz

The word chametz (or hametz) derives from the root חמץ - meaning "to be sour, to ferment, to be leavened". Jastrow claims that perhaps the original meaning was "to be hot", which led to another meaning - the color red. Jastrow gives the example from Moed Katan 23a, where they mention בחימוצתא רומיתא סומקתא - which he translates as "Roman dyed red garments".

Other words that derive from the same root חמץ include hometz (or chometz) חומץ - vinegar, and its derivative humtza חומצה - acid. One example of hometz in the Tanach is in Megilat Rut (2:14), where Boaz tells Rut to: וְטָבַלְתְּ פִּתֵּךְ, בַּחֹמֶץ - "dip your bread in the vinegar". This sounds like an unusual dip for bread, and the Daat Mikra suggests that perhaps hometz here meant sour milk.

I have heard however a different explanation that has more linguistic significance. The Arabic term for chickpea dip - commonly known in English as hummus - has the same root as hometz - חמץ. In the Talmud, there is reference to a legume known as himtza חימצא (or חימצי). So perhaps Boaz was suggesting something a little more tasty - bread with hummus.

Does himtza also derive from the same root as chametz? Klein says that it probably does. I'm not 100% sure - in Aramaic chametz is chamiya חמיעא. Horowitz (p. 108) teaches that the letter tsade is a "triplet letter" - having once had three different pronunciations. Aramaic acts as a mirror into the original Hebrew pronunciation. He points out that sometimes Aramaic preserves the current sound of tzade - צרח is the same in Hebrew and in Aramaic. Occasionally tsade has the sound of tet - נצר in Hebrew is נטר in Aramaic. And then there are cases where tsade is like ayin - ארץ in Hebrew is ארעא in Aramaic. So while the Aramaic word himtza חימצא preserves the tzade, chamiya חמיעא - has it replaced with an ayin. This could very well point to different origins.

kitniyot

While I expressed gratitude that I do eat gebrochts on Pesach, I regret that I can't say the same about kitniyot (or kitniot) - קטניות. Jastrow defines kitniyot as "small fruit, pulse, beans, peas", and states that the term derives from the word katan קטן - small. This term appears in Talmudic literature far before the medieval prohibition of eating it on Pesach.

As often happens, an etymology can often help to better understand the nature of a term. Richard Israel did so in this essay in regards to kitniyot:

In general, kitniot are those small (kitniot - from katan) seeds or beans which look a little like grains and which need to be cooked to be eaten. Though frequently translated as legumes, aside from peas and peanuts, they are NOT legumes. And some legumes, like alfalfa leaves which can be used for salad, ARE NOT kitniot. Legumes are plants whose root nodules make nitrogen. Since "teensy-weensies" or "tinies" are not translations that are very likely to make it into ordinary English parlance, the most appropriate translation for kitniot, it seems to me, is kitniot.

Now obviously an understanding of kitniyot as being small enough to look like grain has an impact on what could or should be considered to be included in the prohibition. But that's beyond the scope of Balashon...

gebrochts

Some Jews will not eat anything cooked with matza on Pesach - including matza meal. (I'm not included in that group, BH.) They refrain from eating any food that is gebrocht. (The Hebrew term is matza shruya, but since this custom originated in Eastern Europe, the Yiddish name is used much more.) When I asked about the etymology of the term, someone guessed that perhaps it was related to bracha - blessing. That's not correct, but we'll get back to that association later.

The term gebrocht means broken - as one would break matza into soup. As this site explains, "The past participle of Yiddish verbs is formed by adding the prefix ge- and the ending -(e)n or -t to the base of the verb." So gefilte fish is filled (stuffed) fish: "ge-fill-t". And broken matza is "ge-broch-t". Since German and English are closely related languages, we can easily see how these words developed.

A slang term for bankrupt is "broke", and this leads to a question that appears on those list of silly questions floating around the internet: Why the man who invests all your money is called a broker?

Take Our Word For It explores the origins of the term broker:

One school connects it with tapping into or broaching a wine cask in order to sell the wine - in fact, this school claims that broker derives from the same source as broach. Both words supposedly come from French broche "awl" (from Latin broccus "projecting"). The Latin derives possibly from Gaulish, as there is an apparent Gaelic cognate: brog "awl". Incidentally, even if broker does not derive from the French broche, the word brooch (which was spelled broach until quite recently) certainly does.
Another school propounds the theory that the word comes ultimately from an Arabic source. The Anglo-Norman form of the word is thought to have been brocour, and a variant was abrocour. There was a Spanish word alboroque "sealing of a bargain" as well as Portuguese (one of the most interesting sources of English words) alborcar "barter", both likely coming from Arabic (with the al representing the Arabic definite article). Earnest Weekley notes that we see the Spanish word as early as 1020 and that its derivation from Arabic (or Hebrew) is supported by the fact that many brokers in the Middle ages were Arabs or Jews.
Weekley notes another possible explanation (though he favors the Arabic source): Anglo French broucour "one who broaches a wine cask and sells the wine". There was a variant, abroucour, whose Medieval Latin equivalent was abbrocator, and this may have been confused with or influenced by Medieval Latin abbocator "a broker" or literally "one who brings a buyer and seller mouth to mouth", boca being Latin for "mouth".

What Arabic root are they referring to? The American Heritage Dictionary gives the following etymology:

Middle English, from Anglo-Norman brocour, abrocour; akin to Spanish alboroque, ceremonial gift at conclusion of business deal, from Arabic al-barka, the blessing, colloquial variant of al-baraka : al-, the + baraka, blessing, divine favor (from braka, to bless)

So you can see there is at least one theory that provides a connection between a word sounding like "broke" in English, and bracha in Hebrew.

Here's one more, although I'm not sure whether I believe it. There are those who think that the origin of the term "break a leg" (a way to wish luck to someone before a performance) is in Hebrew.

How so? There are a number of explanations out there - here's the one from World Wide Words:

Germans say Hals- und Beinbruch, “neck and leg break”, as ways of wishing someone good luck without any fear of supernatural retaliation. It is sometimes said that the German expression is actually a corruption of a Hebrew blessing hatzlakha u-brakha, “success and blessing”, which may have been borrowed via Yiddish. Whatever its source, the most plausible theory is that Hals- und Beinbruch was transferred into the American theatre (in which Yiddish- or German-speaking immigrant Jews were strongly represented) sometime after World War I.

Doesn't sound too likely to me, but I'll buy it before I stop eating gebrochts...

matza

There are two theories about the etymology of matza (or matzah) מצה.

Some say that it comes from the root נצה - meaning "to hasten", and therefore matza would mean "that which was made in haste." While Klein doesn't mention it, I assume there is a connection to the root אוץ - which also means to hasten, and is the root of such words as מאיץ and תאוצה (acceleration).

The other more popular theory is that matza derives from the root מצץ, meaning "to squeeze, to suck, to drain out". According to this approach, matza receives its name from its dry nature. This root also is the source of the word mitz מיץ - juice, tamtzit תמצית - essence, and mitzui מיצוי - originally squeezing, but later took on a sense of "getting as much as possible out of something". This led to a nice linguistic drasha, that appears here (among other places):

The Hebrew word Matza has the same root as Mitzui (realization of potential), while the Hebrew word Chametz (leaven) has the same root as Hachmatza (missing an opportunity).

As an aside, Onkelos translates matza as פטיר or פטירא (patir or patira). Jastrow explains that term as "free from admixture" - in the case of matza, free of leaven.

karpas

Karpas and "carpet" have something in common - and no, carpet is not the Sefardi pronunciation.

We all know karpas כרפס is the vegetable - often parsley or celery - eaten as a sort of appetizer at the Pesach Seder. What is the origin of the word?

There are those that claim it comes from the Persian word karafs (or karats, according to Klein), meaning parsley. Others claim that it derives from the Greek karpos, meaning "fruit of the soil." Karpos originates in the Indo-European root kerp, meaning "to gather, to harvest." Other words from the same root include "harvest", and "carpet", because it was made of unraveled, "plucked" fabric.

One very similar word that does not appear to have any etymological connection (some interesting drashot notwithstanding) is the word karpas appearing in the Book of Esther (1:6), meaning "fine cotton or linen". I won't go into detail about that meaning of karpas, since a big post on cotton should be coming up soon. However, Mar Gavriel presents an interesting theory here, that the pronunciation of karpas the vegetable was influenced by karpas the fabric:

According to Prof. Guggenheimer (in his book The Scholar's Haggadah), the words karpas (fine white linen) and karafs (celery) are both Farsi. Whoever provided the vowel-points for the mediaeval song "Qaddêsh u-Rechatz" only knew the consonants KRPS from the Meghilla, so he vocalized them as he had found them there.

Obviously this only fits the theory that כרפס the vegetable derives from the Persian and not Greek, but it's interesting in any case.

afikoman

The afikoman אפיקומן is perhaps the most misunderstood part of the seder meal. The Mishna in Pesachim (10:8) states:

ואין מפטירין אחר הפסח אפיקומן

Which can be loosely translated as "After the Pesach (sacrifice) one should not end with afikoman". To this there are two major questions. One, what is this afikoman? And two, isn't the afikoman actually the last thing we eat at the seder?

First, let's find out what afikoman means. While there are a number of midrashim and folk-etymologies, the most commonly accepted answer is that it comes from the Greek word epikomion, meaning the "festal procession after the meal". Epi means "after" (as in epilogue), and komos means "banquet, merrymaking" (and is the root of the word "comedy").

Professor Eliezer Segal explains here the development of this understanding of afikoman:

The reference is to a custom known as epikomion, a Greek word meaning "after dinner revelry" ... Normally this would involve going off to someone else's house, whether or not you have been invited, and indulging in another party.
What the Mishnah is saying is that, in spite of some of the apparent similarities between the seder and a pagan banquet, one should not treat it light-headedly as the Romans and Greeks would their own feasts. This meaning was understood by the Rabbis of the Palestinian Talmud, who lived under Roman rule. By contrast, the Babylonian Talmud (whose authors lived farther away from the Greco-Roman world) came to understand the afikoman as a "dessert," translating the Mishnah as "One should not eat anything after the Passover Afikoman."

So now the question remains, even if we accept the Babylonian Talmud's understanding that we are not supposed to eat after the afikoman, why do we call the last piece of matza we eat "the afikoman"?

It was accepted by most halachic authorities that in order to fulfill the intention of the above mishna, the last thing eaten at the seder should be a quantity of matza. In the times of the Geonim, there was no mention that this piece needed to come from the broken and hidden piece of the middle matza. But by the time of the Rishonim (Rashi, Rashbam and others), it was emphasized that the last piece of matza eaten should come from the broken and hidden piece. This is the origin of the siman (step) tzafun צפון - meaning "hidden".

Then, starting in the time of the Rishonim (Machzor Vitri, Sefer Rokeach, and others), the afikoman began to refer to the piece of matza eaten during tzafun.

So the meaning afikoman changed from a forbidden act of revelry, to a dessert, to a required piece of matza during the meal. Anyone who could have guessed that really deserves an "afikoman present"...

maror

The etymology of maror מרור (in the Tanach, it never appears in the singular but rather as the plural merorim מרורים) is simple - it means "bitter herbs", from mar מר - "bitter".

What English word also derives from the same Hebrew root? The spice myrrh gets its name from the Hebrew word mor מור. This spice was burned at the altar in the Temple, and appears numerous times in Shir HaShirim. Rashi (Bereshit 22:2), following Onkelos, explains the etymology of Har HaMoriah as coming from the spice mor. While other explanations are given, Shir HaShirim (4:6) does mention Har HaMor.

This of course leads to the question: why would such a central spice be named after something so bitter? This site seems to give the answer:

Myrrh is a gum resin produced by trees and shrubs of the family Burseracea, most notably Commiphora myrrha, Commiphora abysinica, and Commiphora schimperi. The resin is obtained from Arabia and adjacent Africa, and is taken from the small, prickly gray-barked trees. Pearls of myrrh are brown, red or yellow, with an oily texture, becoming hard and brittle with age. It has a pleasing fragrance, very much like balsam, and a lasting, bitter, aromatic taste, hence the name mor, which signifies bitterness.

I'm sure there's a nice drasha that can be made about how mor is sweet to smell but bitter to taste. If someone knows of one, please let me know; otherwise feel free to write your own...

hag'ala

A number of years ago I was working on a kibbutz, helping to prepare the kitchen for Pesach. One of the tasks was to rinse the vessels and utensils in boiling water - known as hag'alat kelim - הגעלת כלים. When someone asked me what I was doing, I said ani mag'il אני מגעיל - which also means "I am disgusting." While the story would have been funnier if I had not known the meanings of both words, the question remains - what is the connection between rinsing in boiling water and disgust/rejection? Does the root געל have one meaning or two?

Klein seems to indicate that there are two meanings, but doesn't fully explain the etymology of each. If I recall correctly, one of the kibbutznikim offered me a convincing explanation. Both words indicate repulsion. When something disgusts me or someone rejects me - I am repelled away. When I do ha'galat kelim - I repel, remove, the chametz from the vessel.

hakheh

Many people are surprised by the violent answer to the wicked son in the Haggadah, when we are told to "hit him in the teeth". However, that is a mistranslation. The text says הקהה את שיניו - "blunt his teeth" - not הכה את שיניו - "hit him in the teeth." What is the meaning of the verb hakheh?

The root קהה means to "be blunt, be dull." The connection to teeth appears In Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) 31:28-29: אָבוֹת אָכְלוּ בֹסֶר; וְשִׁנֵּי בָנִים, תִּקְהֶינָה - "Parents have eaten sour grapes and children's teeth are blunted." This blunting of teeth is referring to the opposite of the ideal state - healthy teeth are assumed to be sharp. The midrash in Yalkut Shimoni (Eicha) describes Yitzchak as הבן שנתן לו בקהיות שנים למאה שנה - "the son that was given to (Avraham) when his teeth were blunt (i.e. he was in his old age), when he was one hundred years old." Jastrow provides a number of examples of the use of the root קהה - and while they differ, they all derive from the same meaning - dull or blunt.

The root קהה seems to be connected to the similar sounding root כהה - which means "to grow dim, faint" and later "to become dark". Both קהה and כהה are according to one theory the root of a word that many strongly associate with Pesach - coffee. The American Heritage® Dictionary claims that coffee comes from the Arabic word qahwa meaning "dark stuff", and is related to the Arabic word kahiya, "to be(come) weak", which is connected to both קהה and כהה.

This is certainly not the only theory. Many others say that the word coffee comes from the Ethiopian region of Kaffa. Stahl and others say that qahwa originally referred to a type of wine. Now, imagine how awake you'd be after four cups of coffee at the end of the Seder!

pesach

It might seem that the etymology of the word Pesach is so obvious that it doesn't deserve an entry here. Pesach = "pass over", no? Well, until I started researching it, I would have agreed. However, it turns out that the origin and meaning of pesach is one of the most complicated topics I've dealt with yet.

It is clear that Pesach is connected to the verb pasach פסח. But what does pasach mean?

Both pesach and pasach appear for the first time in Shmot (Exodus), chapter 12:

יא וְכָכָה, תֹּאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ--מָתְנֵיכֶם חֲגֻרִים, נַעֲלֵיכֶם בְּרַגְלֵיכֶם וּמַקֶּלְכֶם בְּיֶדְכֶם; וַאֲכַלְתֶּם אֹתוֹ בְּחִפָּזוֹן, פֶּסַח הוּא לַהשם.

יג וְהָיָה הַדָּם לָכֶם לְאֹת, עַל הַבָּתִּים אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם שָׁם, וְרָאִיתִי אֶת-הַדָּם, וּפָסַחְתִּי עֲלֵכֶם; וְלֹא-יִהְיֶה בָכֶם נֶגֶף לְמַשְׁחִית, בְּהַכֹּתִי בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.

In order not to influence your understanding of pasach, I won’t translate the phrases, but in short, verse 11 states that “you will have a pesach to God” and in verse 13, God says that “I will pasach over (or “on”) you.”

There are three main explanations to the word pasach – “to have compassion”, “to protect” or “to skip over.”

Let’s review each of the opinions.

To skip over - לדלג: This is the most commonly known definition. How did it become so popular? According to Nahum Sarna in Exploring Exodus (page 87), this translation became predominant because the Latin Vulgate version translates pasach as “pass over” – transire in Latin. (Interestingly, it was the 16th century Christian scholar William Tyndale who coined the term Passover. Previously pesach was translated by Christians as paschal or pask.) This understanding explanation was adopted by the Septuagint, Josephus, Rav Yoshaia in the Mechilta (who connects פסח with פסע) Rashbam, and Rashi brings it as one of the options (כל פסיחה לשון דלוג וקפיצה).

To have compassion לחוס : This is the translation provided by Onkelos, an unnamed source in the Mechilta (אין פסיחה אלא חייס) and Rabbi Yonatan in the Mechilta (פסחתי עליכם – עליכם אני חס) and is also offered by Rashi (פסחתי – חמלתי). Sarna feels this is the oldest and most reliable. Dov Rappel and others suggest that Onkelos translated פסח as חוס because it would not be respectful to describe God as “jumping”.

To protect להציל, להגן: This explanation appears in Tosefta Sota (Chapter 4), Targum Yonatan, the Mechilta, and is supported by Yishayahu (Isaiah) 31:5:
כְּצִפֳּרִים עָפוֹת--כֵּן יָגֵן ה' צְבָאוֹת, עַל-יְרוּשָׁלִָם; גָּנוֹן וְהִצִּיל, פָּסֹחַ וְהִמְלִיט.
“Like the birds that fly, even so will the Lord of Hosts shield Jerusalem, shielding and saving, protecting (פסח) and rescuing.”
There is certainly a strong connection between to protect and to have compassion, and one understanding might have developed from the other.

A word from the same root is piseach פיסח - meaning lame. Amos Chacham in Daat Mikra (Shmot) (and earlier the Radak in Sefer HaShorashim) quotes the verse in Yishayahu (35:6):

אָז יְדַלֵּג כָּאַיָּל פִּסֵּחַ, וְתָרֹן לְשׁוֹן אִלֵּם:
“And the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing out loud”
Chacham goes on to say that perhaps the sacrificial lamb itself is called “pesach” because it jumps and skips. However, Samuel Loewenstamm in The Tradition of the Exodus in Its Development rejects that explanation based on the same verse. He points out (page 86) that the verse describing a miraculous state, but it is not the way of the piseach to jump, just as the deaf do not usually sing. (A neighbor of mine suggested that perhaps piseach is related to pasach (to jump), but is used to describe a lame person in a euphemistic way.)

Loewenstamm mentions an Arabic root connected to pasach which means to expand. (He brings the root in Arabic, but unfortunately I can’t read Arabic.) He states that the same verb also has the meaning “to save” (and therefore is another proof for him that the translation “to protect” is the most authentic.)

Rav Uri Dasberg in Shabbat B’Shabbato quotes the same Arabic root to explain a difficult passage in the Hagada Shel Pesach. The Seder opens with the invitation:
כל דצריך ייתי ויפסח
This is generally translated as: “anyone who needs it may partake of the Pesach sacrifice.” However, the law states that the sacrifice is distributed only to those who reserved a portion before it was slaughtered. Once the seder has begun, it is too late to add participants.

Dasberg explains that the entire “invitation” is intended for non-Jewish foreigners. The Talmud states the Jews of Babylon were required by law to invite soldiers of the king into their homes in times of crisis. This is a reason that the invitation is in Aramaic. In order to avoid the prohibition of cooking for a non-Jew on a holiday, the invitation was extended after the meal had begun (since no more food could be added.)

According to Dasberg, perhaps the meaning of ויפסח was to make room (like the Arabic root), so the invitation said “we will make room for anyone who needs” and did not refer to the Pesach sacrifice at all.