A man once heard of a marvelous blue bird that could be found only in one place in the entire world.  This man decided to try and find this unique bird.  He searched his town, he searched his country, and – obsessed with finding it – he looked for the special bird around the entire world.  After many years, this man decides to return home: defeated, exhausted and older.  Tired, he sat to rest in his balcony, let his gaze wander to his garden, and fell asleep.  As he woke up, he saw next to him the magnificent blue bird.  A bird that had always lived there.  In his own garden.

EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS

As a teenager, there were a few subjects and themes that captivated me, such as cosmology (how the universe began) and the theory of evolution, particularly, how life began in our planet.  Beyond their technical aspects, these fields touch upon the meaning of existence.  If the world appeared spontaneously, and if life was caused by a series of coincidences, then Creation as told to us by the Tora is not necessary to explain how we got here, or why.  And without Creation, one can question the existence of a Creator.

I was 16-17 years old at the time, and these questions tortured me. 

On the one hand, I felt confident about my Judaism.  My heart was full of Emuna – conviction.  I was very proud of everything Jewish: our People, our Land, our history.  But, on the other hand, I was also held back by many intellectual uncertainties.  Some of my friends and teachers tried to convince me to ignore these questions, since “they were the influence of the Yetser haRa,” the evil instinct.  They said so because they felt ignoring these questions would be for my own benefit, and because most people seemed to get by perfectly well without struggling with these issues. However, none of them was able to persuade me rationally how to defend the Tora’s version of Creation, or why to believe in a Creator when all scientists seemed to support the Big Bang and random evolution.

What was I to do?  Hide my head in the sand, at the expense of my critical thinking, or abandon my Jewish tradition for being incompatible with I had gathered from modern science?  I was at a loss.

So, in 1978, upon finishing high school, I decided to travel to Israel.  I enrolled in Bar Ilan University, hoping to find a place that would harmonize academic rigor with Jewish tradition.  Maybe there I could find answers to my questions.  My flight to Israel had a layover in New York, where my uncle Rabbi Yosef Faur (or Tío José as I called him) lived.  Tío José had graciously offered to host me at his house for a few days, and I accepted.  I had always heard of him, and I had seen him in Argentina a few times when I was a younger boy.  But this was going to be my first “serious” encounter with him.

THE BLUE BIRD

And it was a revelation.  My uncle had answers to all my questions.  Instead of encouraging me to forego my critical thinking, he taught me to make the most of it, and to actually apply it rigorously also to question the many dogmas assumed by science.  He introduced me to the philosophy of science, which was a field of study I had never even heard of before. 

I had always assumed that science was objective, and that scientists were objective.  He taught me that scientists also have their own biases and ideologies, and that I had to learn to differentiate between real science and scientific theories, and that I should train myself to identify ideologically-bent theories. He helped me realize that my critical thinking, which had given me so much grief over the prior years, was in fact my key to finding my answers. 

From him, I also learned to read the book of Bereshit through the eyes and methodology of those Hachamim who had themselves wrestled with the intellectual challenges of their time. Maimonides, Rabbi David Nieto, Rabbi Moshe Hefets, Rabbi Benzion Frizzi, to name just a few. Hakham Faur showed me that dinosaurs were mentioned in the Tora (“HaTaninim HaGedolim”), and explained to me how to resolve the age discrepancies between science and Tora (billions of years, or less stan six thousand?).  And he did all of this without departing a single inch from the Tora or Rabbinic traditions, and without resorting to questionable tricks (which never appealed to me) like saying that each one day on the Tora in reality refers to a million years, or something of the sort.

It occurred to me then that my uncle must have had all these answers because he, too, had already dealt with the very doubts that were bothering me.  And now I didn’t have to start from scratch.  My privilege was that he had given me a head start and I didn’t need to figure things out on my own.  Things he already had. 

I thought I would have to travel around the world to find my blue bird.  But the blue bird was my very own uncle, and the Sephardic tradition he so well knew and represented.

TWO WAYS TO FACE AN ENEMY

I remember one of the first Tora insights that I learned from him, one which accompanied me and will continue to accompany me throughout my life.  It has to do with the Perasha that we read in two Shabbatot, SHELAH LEKHA.

When Moshe sent scouts to investigate the promised land, he instructed them: “Look at the inhabitants who live in that land… and the cities where they live—are they open, or walled?”  The spies return with a very pessimistic report to Moshe and the people.  Among other things, they complain that “the cities are walled up to the sky,” as if to imply that they are impenetrable.  But for Moshe walled cities would have been a sign of weakness.  He told me, “people who hide behind fortified walls are not trained for battle.  They draw their confidence from the strength of their walls.  And if these walls were to fall (say, miraculously), then they would be very easy to defeat in battle.  On the other hand, people living in open cities, without walls, must rely on their own skills to defeat the enemy.  They train for battle, and it is much more difficult to defeat them.”  Immediately afterwards, my uncle explained to me: “There are two ways to confront an ideology that is adverse to you.  The first way, is to build a wall, to surround yourself with cultural walls and take refuge behind them.  The wall will shield you, but only as long as it is there and as long as you don’t venture outside it.  But if it is breached, or if you leave the wall, then you are dangerously vulnerable.  The other strategy is to live in open cities.  But if you are open to being exposed to other ideas, you will make a point to learn how to face and overcome them.  After all, the Tora is the truth–and why then should we be afraid to confront other ideas?” (It is worth noting that the message of this parable is applicable only to the world of ideas, and not to the world of social assimilation.  The social “walls” demanded by the Tora and our sages creating distance between us and other cultures are meant to protect us from assimilation.)

Through my uncle, I discovered an intelligent Judaism.  Thanks to him, I was able to harmonize between my heritage and my intellect.  Because of his words, I fell passionately in love, more than ever, with our Tora and our Hakhamim; and I decided then to become a rabbi, and dedicate my life to teaching Tora.

My book Awesome Creation, in which I explore the tensions and commonalities between Tora and modern science, is in a way also an autobiographical account of my doubts, and the answers that I found over time.  And it was inspired by what I learned, directly or indirectly, from my dear uncle, Hakham Yosef Faur. 

צדיקים אין בונים להם נפש על קברותיהם שדבריהם הם זיכרונם

It is not necessary to erect a monument in the tombs of the just and wise men. The words and ideas they leave us are the true tribute to their memory (Maimonides).

וַתִּשֶּׂנָה קוֹלָן וַתִּבְכֶּינָה עוֹד וַתִּשַּׁק עָרְפָּה לַחֲמוֹתָהּ וְרוּת דָּבְקָה בָּהּ

During the festival of Shabu’ot, which we will soon celebrate, we will read Megilat Ruth. The book that tells the story of a Moabite woman who converted to Judaism and was King David’s great-grandmother. Briefly, Naomi, her husband Elimelekh, and their two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, left the land of Israel in a time of famine and settled in Moab (Jordan of today). There, the two sons of Naomi married Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah. Tragically, Elimelekh and his two sons died. Orpah, returned to his people Moab. Ruth, however, decided to join the fate of Naomi, her mother-in-law and by extension (“Your people is my people, your God is my God”), to the fate of the Jewish people. Later on, Ruth converted to Judaism, she married Boaz and had a son: Obed. Obed was the father of Ishai, who was the father of David, the most important King of Israel, and from whose dynasty the Mashiah will proceed.
Returning to Ruth, there is a very interesting term with which the Megilla describes Ruth’s decision to join the fate of Naomi ורות דבקה בה VERUT DABQA BAH. “And Ruth clung to her” [to her mother-in-law Naomi]. This verb DABAQ (which in modern Hebrew is the origin of the noun “debeq”, glue) takes on a very specific meaning, which is learned from its context: by joining his mother-in-law, Naomi, Ruth left everything behind. She disengaged “definitively” from her family, from her house, from her village, and she became part of Naomi’s people without having anything to gain. In fact, her attachment to Naomi was totally unconditional, since in theory this new relationship would have left her in complete destitution. Ruth had no hope of getting married again, or to prosper economically. Even food or a roof was not guaranteed to her. It should not surprise us then that Ruth has become the role model of conversion to Judaism, where the proselyte converts without ulterior motives, disengages from his or her past and identity, and out of unconditionallove for the Jewish people is willing to lose everything she is, owns or possesses.
Let’s take a closer look at this little but deep word: “DABAQ”. The Rabbis said: “The words of the Tora are poor in one place and rich in another place.” This means that sometimes a Biblical word is found in a “poor” context, which does not illuminate the whole sense of it. And at other times, that same word is found in a more “generous” context, which illuminates all the richness of a given word. Thus, the richer context helps us to understand the word that is in the poorer context.
Let’s see. The Tora tells us that we must “cling” to HaShem, using the same word DABAQ  ( לאהבה את ה’ א’ ללכת בכל דרכיו ולדבקה בו ). “To love HaShem, to walk in His paths and to cling to Him.” From Megilat Ruth we learn that “clinging” points to a much higher level of love: being willing to “renounce” and “sacrificing” material benefits. Clinging to HaShem means loving HaShem when things are going well for me and also when things are not going that well. When HaShem answers my prayers and when He does not. Being loyal and faithful to HaShem unconditionally, in good times and in challenging times.
It is interesting to note that the first time this word DABAQ is found in the Tora it defines the relationship between husband and wife (Gen. 2:24) ודבק באשתו והיו לבשר אחד “And man shall cling to his wife and they shall become one Flesh. “ To the already many and beautiful interpretations on this verse we can now add one more interpretation, which we learned from Ruth. Love between husband and wife, beyond infatuation and romance, implies renunciation and sacrifice. It must be unconditional and unselfish. It must continue to grow in good times and in bad times. When I’m right and when she’s right. When we agree and when we do not agree.
In summary, thanks to the generous context of the word “dabaq” in Megilat Rut we can now understand that this deep verb defines a level of love where one must be willing to give up and sacrifice; and to give oneself unconditionally to whom (or to Whom) one loves.

אין לנו על מי להשען אלא אבינו שבשמים

In the war of 1948, Israel miraculously defeated the five Arab countries that attacked her, after Israel declared its independence on Iyar 5, May 14 of that same year.

As we have already mentioned, none of the world powers at that time, the United States, France and England, came out to defend Israel. On the contrary, these countries established an arms embargo that placed Israel on the brink of extermination. Israel’s triumph in 1948 was, in my own words, a miracle of biblical proportions.

THE PARALYSIS OF THE ENEMY

After the first ceasefire, when the war started again, the Arab forces were paralyzed. Despite having Israel surrounded on all sides, the enemy did not advance. As if something was stopping them. Israel, on the other hand, began its counteroffensive, regaining territory and conquering land beyond the original borders. The prophecies that the Tora had announced in the Parasha we read this last Shabbat were fulfilled. The Creator promises His people (Leviticus 26: 7-8) that He will be with them when they go to war: “You will chase your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you. “

“YOU SHALL NOT BE UNGRATEFUL”

We Jews must be infinitely grateful to HaShem for His Providential intervention. As King David wrote in his Psalms, when he was saved from a certain death “I will sing Your praises and I will not remain silent; HaShem, my God, I will thank you forever. “  A Jew —who is permanently training himself to see Divine Intervention in his personal life— who does not see or does not declare his or her gratitude  to God for the birth and survival of Medinat Israel, in my opinion, is not only spiritually blind but is also accountable for the great sin of ingratitude. And there is no worse ingratitude than ingratitude to God.

ENGLAND, OF ARABIA

Of the three countries mentioned, the one that harmed Israel the most was Great Britain. England remained passive while thinking that Israel was going to lose the war. But intervened when realizing that Israel might win.

A couple of examples.

√ Jordan had the direct support of the English. The English trained their troops and supervised all their operations, especially in the fight for Jerusalem, which costed many Jewish lives. When Israel began to counterattack and bombed Jordan’s capital Amman, in reaction to the ongoing bombings of Tel Aviv, England threatened to destroy Tel-Aviv’s airports with its Royal Air Force. Israel had to withdraw.

√ In early January 1949, Israel, against all odds, was winning the war. Israel bombed Cairo and Damascus, and the Jewish army continued to advance towards the Suez Canal. The United Nations rushed to demand a ceasefire and declare an armistice. Israel, against its own interests, accepted the armistice. At that time Israel had already conquered Gaza, Rafiah, and much of the Sinai peninsula. And according to international law territories conquered in the war belong to the country that wins the war. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED WITH ALL THE COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD THROUGHOUT HISTORY.

ISRAEL IS DIFFERENT

Now: In an action that went against all historical precedents and military conquests, including the conquests of the English colonies themselves, Great Britain denied Israel this right. And threatened to intervene militarily against Israel if the Jewish State did not return the conquered territory, the Sinai peninsula, Gaza, Rafiah, to Egypt (A history of Israel. Howard Sachar, page 346). David Ben Gurion was strongly opposed to this unprecedented concession. Ben Gurion considered it unfair and inconceivable that the Arabs would not pay a price for the war that they themselves had launched!  And no one would have required the Arabs to give up their military conquests, if they had defeated Israel.

Ben Gurion said that Israel will return the Arabs the conquered territories when the Arabs return to Israel the 6,000 Jews who died in the war that they started”

HOW DO YOU SAY “PRESSURE” IN ENGLAND?

But the international pressure was so great that Israel, completely isolated, had to give in.

To this day Israel continues to pay the price for this concession.

Why?

Firstly, because the outrageous international impunity enjoyed by any country or organization.  that attacks Israel,  encourages them to attack Israel again.

Second, because Israel inadvertently set a very dangerous precedent: Israel is willing to accept conditions that are not required of any other country in the world! Like, “return” conquered territory, or repatriate enemies (Palestinian refugees) who voluntarily fled a war that their own allies started!

Instead of “bringing more peace” Israel’s permanent concessions only encouraged the Arab countries, with the approval of the great powers, to demand more and more from Israel.

Until today, in the United Nations, Israel is not considered as just one more state. Israel is the only country in the world that can be threatened with extermination without fear of global condemnation.  Israel is the only country that is permanently condemned, and accused of the very crimes that its accusers perpetrate with impunity, with the complicit silence of the United Nations.

As Bil’am prophetically said (Bemidbar 23: 9):  Israel  “is a nation isolated [by other nations] and that other peoples do not consider [Israel as one of them ].  We cannot forget that the nations of the world abandoned us when we needed them most: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. 

Today is Yom haShoah, the day we remember the murder of 6,000,000 Jews in the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators.
Many historians repeat over and over again that had the State of Israel existed before 1939, more Jews could have migrated to the land of Israel, and millions of Jewish lives could have been saved…
The story of a Jewish family in Thessaloniki, Greece, the family of Rabbi Habib, could serve as an example.

JEWISH GREECE

In 1900 the Jewish community of Thessaloniki was the most important Sephardic community in the world, with more than 90,000 Jews, more than half the total population of the city. The Jews excelled in all professions: lawyers, doctors, teachers and maritime trade specialists. The Jewish stevedores of the port of Thessaloniki were famous throughout the world. And during Shabbat, the port of Thessaloniki, one of the most important in Europe, remained closed, since most of the port workers and entrepreneurs were Jews.
There were 49 synagogues in Thessaloniki, and a 500-year-old cemetery with half a million graves. The community of Thessaloniki was always considered the Sephardic community “par excellence”. From the time of the expulsion from Spain in 1492, Salonica was the favorite destination of tens of thousands of Jewish refugees who escaped the Inquisition. The official language of the Jews of Salonika was Ladino, that is, the ancient Judeo-Spanish language.

RABBI HABIB and HIS FAMILY

Rabbi Hayim Habib, born in Salonika in 1882, was a descendant of one of the most prestigious families of Rabanim and Dayanim (rabbinical judges).Rabbi Habib had 4 children: 3 daughters and a son. At the age of 40, Rabbi Habib was offered to serve as the great Chief Rabbi of Thessaloniki. Between 1920 and 1940 the Zionist movement was very active in Thessaloniki. Rabbi Habib was an enthusiastic supporter of emigration to Israel and took care that modern Hebrew be taught in all the schools under his jurisdiction, in order to prepare the youth for Aliya. A daughter and the son of Rabbi Habib emigrated to the land of Israel before the war and settled Tel Aviv.
During that time thousands of Jews from Salonika also came to Israel. Some of these families today own important companies, such as the family of Mordechai Mano, the pioneer of maritime commercial transport companies in Israel, which owns Seagull Maritime, Mano Maritime, etc. Or the Recanati family, also from Thessaloniki, who established the famous Israel Discount Bank.

FROM THESSALONIKI to AUSCHWITZ

When World War II began, the Jewish population of Thessaloniki consisted of 56,000 souls. In April 1941 Germany invaded Greece, the Greek King George the II fled Athens, and the country was divided into three different zones: Athens and certain Greek islands were under the control of Italy; East Macedonia was under the control of Bulgaria; Thessaloniki fell under the control of the Nazis. The Germans destroyed synagogues, Jewish schools, libraries, and the Jewish cemetery. Soon, a ghetto was created for the Jews of Thessaloniki, and they were forced to move there wearing the yellow Star of David. This led to widespread looting of Jewish homes and businesses by collaborators among the local population. The Jews of Thessaloniki – virtually the entire community – were deported to the concentration camps, by March 1943.
95 percent of the Jews in Thessaloniki, 54,000 Jews, were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau, or died during the terrible “Death March” from January to May 1945. In this march the surviving Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz had to walk out in the field in temperatures that reached -4 degrees F. They were taken to die there to “erase any evidence” that could incriminate the Nazis from the horrors of the concentration camps (nowadays the famous “March of the Living” are organized in memory of these marches).
Rabbi Hayim Habib, his wife and two of his daughters died in Auschwitz or on the death march, in 1945. However, a third of Rabbi Habib’s family –-as it happened to thousands of Thessaloniki’s Jews– survived because they migrated to Israel, where they now live BH with their numerous families descendants.

To better understand and appreciate the value and meaning of Medinat Israel, and to be infinitely grateful to HaShem for its miraculous existence today, we should remember these tragic numbers 

In the Beginning (1746 – 1839):

To understand the original meaning of the Haroset, and its profound educational value, we will have to forget for a few moments the recipe of our own Haroset, and focus our attention on the three basic ingredients indicated by the Sages.

When Maimonides mentions the Haroset he says first that we prepare a paste with figs, dates, raisins or similar fruits. These soft fruits (or softened with cooking) are mushed, and then mixed with vinegar. And to this paste we then add the tebalín, or herbs.

Now that we know what the three ingredients of the Haroset are – fruits, vinegar and herbs – we will try to understand the reason of each one of them.

FRUITS, FOR THE TEXTURE OF MUD

Maimonides says (see text below) that the Haroset should remind us of the mud with which (or “in” which, as we shall see later) our fathers worked day and night, in the horrific Egyptian slavery. When you mush these fruits, part of that paste will surely remain in your hands. In a a similar way, the hands, feet and probably the entire body of the Hebrew slaves was never clean of mud. It always remain in their body. The fruits we use for the Haroset, dates, figs, etc. are soft and easy to mush, because the mission is to recreate a meal representing the mud (חרוסת זכר לטיט).

VINEGAR, FOR THE FLAVOR OF SLAVERY 

The Sages also indicated that sourness should be perceived in the flavor of Haroset. That’s why in the original recipe vinegar, and not wine, is added to the Haroset. The sour taste of vinegar, obviously, is reminiscent of the bitter taste of our slavery, something that is explicitly mentioned in the Tora (וימררו את חייהם “And the Egyptians made the life of the Jewish slaves bitter…”. It is interesting to notice that originally, in the Talmud, the sweet taste of Haroset is not emphasized, although it is recognized as the expected flavor of a paste made from the mentioned fruits, which are sweet. Actually the rabbis emphasized that we should not be used too much Haroset to dip the Maror, the bitter herb, in it so that the sweetness of the Haroset does not neutralize its flavor.

HERBS (TEBALIN) FOR THE VISUAL MEMORIES OF SLAVERY

The least known ingredient of the Haroset is the one that Maimonides calls tebalin, that is, herbs. Herbs are generally used as aromatic additives or flavorings, sometimes they are mentioned as tablinín, spices. But in the specific case of the Haroset, Maimonides indicates that the herbs should not be ground or cut into small pieces, as is usually done when one uses spices for cooking. The best Kept secret of the Haroset is to introduce in it pieces of herbs that would resemble the “straw” (in Hebrew teben) that was used with the mud to produce there mud-bricks. The purpose of the tebalín, then, is not to add flavor or aroma to the Haroset, but to recreate a visual effect: “mud with straw” (טיט ותבן). The presence of the herbs / tebalin, is then essential to recreate the symbolic meaning of the Haroset. On this point the Talmud does not register any debate. To the extent that the Gemara in Pesahim relates (see text above) that when people came to the markets to shop for Pesah, the traders of Jerusalem announced: “Come and take (for free) the herbs to fulfill the mitzva [rabbinic commandment of Haroset]”

THE FUNCTION OF THE TEBALIN

Since the effect of these herbs must be visual, there is no specific indication as to what type of herbs or vegetables to be used. Some rabbis mentioned cinnamon, ginger, or hyssop twigs, but making it clear that they should not be powdered but cut into pieces. The Maharil (136-1427) was perhaps the most explicit, saying that herbs or spices should be cut into long, thin pieces (מחותכין ארוכין) to represent the “straw”.

Nowadays, for some reason (that I still ignore) almost all recipes of Haroset include ground spices an/or aromatic herbs and the visual effect that the Haroset must awake in our memory has fallen into oblivion. I will do my best to …

Imagine a formal dinner in an upscale restaurant. The table will include the customary condiments:  salt, pepper, and perhaps some olive oil. Now imagine Maimonides’ table for the Pesah Seder. On his table, there is ONE element that literally replaces “all” other condiments and dressings that night: Haroset, the exclusive dip meant to accompany all the symbolic foods that we consume on the Seder night.

Let us examine how and when the Haroset is consumed at the Pesah Seder according to Maimonides:

KARPAS WITH HAROSET

After inaugurating the Pesah Seder with the Kiddush, the first thing we eat is a piece of Karpas, or celery. In ancient times, it was common for a festive dinner to begin with an aperitif (celery or other fresh vegetables) before serving the main dish in order to stimulate the appetite. Now, the general custom in the Seder is to dip the karpas in vinegar (or water with salt) to remind us of the bitter tears that we shed in our Egyptian captivity. According to Maimonides, however, the karpas should be dipped in the Haroset! Anyways, remember that for Maimonides’ Haroset recipe included a significant amount of vinegar, which gave his Haroset an acidic flavor.

MATSA WITH HAROSET

The second time Haroset is used, as per Maimonides, is when we recite the blessing for the Matsa (Motsi-Matsa). We dip the Matsa in the Haroset instead of using salt as we usually do when we say haMotsi for bread. This gesture reminds me of a beautiful custom that is practiced in some families during Rosh haShana: to express our wishes for a good and sweet year, when saying haMotsi, the bread is dipped in honey or sugar instead of salt. However, while dipping the bread in honey or sugar in Rosh haShana is a popular tradition or folklore, the dipping of the Matsa in the Haroset, for Maimonides, is a formal, practically an “halakhic”, requirement.

MAROR WITH (A LITTLE BIT OF) HAROSET

Nowadays, the Haroset is used firstly to dip the Maror, the bitter herb. In this case, the rabbis indicate that the amount of the Haroset should be minimal, so that the flavor of the Haroset does not deprive us of experiencing the bitter taste of the Maror. Some rabbis wrote that after dipping the Maror in the Haroset, the Haroset must be removed from the Maror so that only a superficial layer remains on it. Maimonides clarifies that in this case, when spreading the Maror with Haroset, we are fulfilling a rabbinic precept, although we do not say a specific blessing for it. According to some opinions, this is because of the rulings of iqar and tafel, which determine that we say blessings on the main food -in this case, the Maror (‘al akhilat maror) as opposed to its accessories– in this case, the Haroset.

MATSA AND MAROR WITH HAROSET

Finally the Haroset is also added to the Korekh, the sandwich of Matsa and Maror that reminds us of the qorban pesah, the lamb that was consumed during the Seder of Pesah with Matsa and Maror in the times of the Bet haMiqdash. As in the case of the Maror, the use of the Haroset in the Korekh is also practiced by all the Jewish communities. As we already explained, the Haroset is not mentioned in the Tora, and is rather a ritual food related to the Pesah Seder which was established by the rabbis. The Haroset carries a tremendous meaning in its taste, its texture and its looks, and it conveys a very tangible representation of the slavery we want to remember in the Seder.

TEXTS WHERE MAIMONIDES MENTIONS HAROSET

מ’ת, הלכות חמץ ומצה, פ’ח 

ה’ב :מתחיל ומברך בורא פרי האדמה, ולוקח ירק ומטבל אותו בחרוסת

ה’ח: בזמן הזה, שאין שם קרבן, אחר שמברך המוציא לחם חוזר ומברך על אכילת מצה, ומטבל מצה בחרוסת ואוכל, וחוזר ומברך על אכילת מרור ומטבל מרור בחרוסת ואוכל, ולא ישהה אותו בחרוסת שמא יבטל טעמו, וזו מצוה מדברי סופרים, וחוזר וכורך מצה ומרור ומטבל בחרוסת ואוכלן בלא ברכה זכר למקדש.

One of the foods that we serve in the Pesach Seder is the Haroset. A paste typically made with a mixture of fresh fruits, nuts and wine.

Unlike other foods that are served during the Seder, such as the Maror or the Matza, the Haroset is not mentioned in the Tora. The Mishna — the work that records the oral tradition of the Jewish people, written around the year 200 of the common era — indicates that the Haroset should be served at the Seder table, but it does not indicate what the function of the Haroset is.

This is not uncommon: many times a tradition, or even a Mitzva from the Rabbis (midibre soferim), was widely practiced, while the reason for that Mitzva was lost or forgotten, and the rabbis of the Talmud attempted to rediscover the original reason again.

CHAROSET AS AN ACCESSORY

The Rabbis debated the reason of the Haroset. According to some opinions the Haroset is not a Mitsva per se but an accessory to the bitter herbs or Maror.  The Talmud records five different herbs, like lettuce,  that could be consumed as Maror to remember the bitter flavor of slavery. Some of these plants contained an acid that could be harmful for digestion (geonim). Some Sages explained that the Maror was dipped in the Haroset in order to neutralize the harmful effects of the acid. According to another opinion, one of the herbs that can be used for Maror (chazeret) contained a worm, that the Haroset was able to eliminate.

A TRIBUTE TO JEWISH WIVES 

תחת התפוח עוררתיך. דרש רב עוירא, בשכר נשים צדקניות שהיו באותו הדור נגאל ישראל ממצרים

Sota 11a

According to Ribbi Eliezer bar Ribbi Tsadoq the Haroset, although eaten with the Maror, is not a mere accessory to alleviate the effects of the Maror but a mandatory food (mitsva) to have at the Seder. And as such, the Haroset has “a meaning in its own”. The Haroset, Ribbi Elazar said, usually prepared with apples, reminds us of a very significant event. Pharaoh decreed the death of all newborn Jewish children. But this did not discourage the heroic women of Israel to be with their husbands and become pregnant. At the time of delivery, the Jewish mothers would go to the apple fields and give birth hidden “under the apple trees”. Miraculously, the Midrash explains, God mitigated their pain at the time of giving birth and the Egyptians guards did not hear the crying babies. According to this opinion, the Haroset is a tribute and a reminder to the women of Israel who acted with bravery and heroism. Thanks to their  wisdom and sacrifice, the Jewish people grew stronger instead of “disappearing” for lack of procreation, as Pharaoh intended.

HAROSET and BRIKCS 

Another opinion, the best known and the most accepted, is that the Haroset represents the mud (טיט) that every day Jewish slaves had to gather with their hands to produce the bricks, used for the construction’s projects of Pharaoh. This was a very arduous and humiliating. The images of our hands and feet soaked  in the mud, are part of the collective memories of our people. A reminder of the slavery and oppression we suffered  for more than a century. Maimonides echoes this last opinion. And thus, in his recipe for Haroset he does not include “apples” as one of the required ingredients. What Maimonides does say is that the Haroset paste should be made with tebalin, herbs, to visually represent the straws that were added into the mud in the process of building the mud-bricks.

JEWISH BLOOD

There is also an opinion in the Talmud of Yerushalayim that says that the Haroset symbolizes the blood of Jewish children killed by Pharaoh and his Egyptian executioners.  This idea was mentioned by Rabbi Moshe Isserles (Ram”a, 1530-1572) as the reason for the Ashkenazi custom of adding red wine to the Haroset.

It is possible to connect all these above mentioned reasons (procreation; the making of bricks, and the killing of Jewish children) recalling a tragic Midrash (which in a post-Shoa time, I see no reason for not to taking it in its literal sense) that says that when a Jewish slave did not produce his due quota of bricks, the Egyptians would take one of his children and replaced the missing bricks with his or her little body.