How Is the Passover Seder Different from All Other Symposia?

The accumulation of liturgical layers, songs, and discussion that adorn the traditional Seder can obscure its original, primary purpose. By closely analyzing the Seder’s artful oration in light of classical rhetoric, a sharper picture emerges of a Roman symposium-like gathering whose aim is to help its members appreciate and celebrate the freedom God granted through the Exodus.

Dr. Richard Hidary

Category:

Pesachim Passover

The seder scene in a Passover Haggadah, with German translation p. 42. (copied by Eliezer Sussman Mezeritsch, decorated by Charlotte von Rothschild · 1842 ) Zürich, Braginsky Collection, B314, e-codices.ch

For over half a century,^[1] scholars have argued that the Seder might be understood as a modified Roman symposium.^[2] Both the Roman symposium and the Rabbis’ Passover meal, Barukh Bokser observes, include “the use of waiters to bring in the food, reclining at the meal, dipping the food, hors d’oeuvres, the use of wine before, during, and after the meal, being festive, the pedagogic use of questions and intellectual discussion, singing and praise to God, and games to keep children awake.”^[3] The participants at the symposium would offer speeches after the meal in response to introductory questions and the theme of the conversation sometimes revolved around the food that was served.

To be clear, the rabbis differentiated the Passover meal from some of the more frivolous and indulgent aspects of the symposium by forbidding after-dinner drunken revelry at neighbors’ homes—this is the original meaning of the prohibition against having afikomen (dessert/after-party) after the Passover sacrifice.^[4] Nevertheless, there is no doubt as to the strong affinity between the two ceremonies. It is thus fitting to analyze the speech, i.e. Haggadah, that dominates the Seder against the background of classical rhetoric, which played such an important role at symposia.

Rhetorical Discourse in Mishnah Pesachim

Saul Lieberman has shown that various aspects of Greco-Roman culture were pervasive not only among more Hellenized Jews of the first centuries CE, but that even “the Rabbis of Palestine were familiar with the fashionable style of the civilized world of that time. Many of them were highly educated in Greek literature…They spoke to the people in their language and in their style.”^[5] It therefore comes as no surprise that the Talmudic sages developed literary genres and modes of persuasion that bear affinity to those of Greco-Roman declamation.

The structure of the Seder is best understood keeping in mind the categories of the Roman politician and lawyer, Cicero (106 BCE -43 BCE), who identifies several typical parts of a rhetorical discourse:^[6]

Exordium, an introduction, secures the goodwill of the audience,
Narration details the facts of the case in judicial deliberation,
Partition introduces the primary headings of the proofs to follow, which almost always numbered three.
Confirmation presents the arguments for one’s point of view based on evidence or probabilities
Refutation presents arguments against the opposing point of view.
Conclusion recapitulates the main points of the speech.

While these six divisions represent the textbook structure for a speech, certain types of oratory and different circumstances require changing the order or omitting certain parts.

Mishnah Pesaḥim 10:4-7, outlining the oration that accompanies the second cup of wine, exemplifies a classical rhetorical structure:^[7]

1. Exordium (m. Pesachim 10:4)

מזגו לו כוס שיני: וכן הבן שואל. אם אין דעת בבן אביו מלמדו מה נשתנה הלילה הזה מכל הלילות

They pour for him the second cup and here the child asks. If the child has no understanding, then his father teaches him: “What is different about this night from all other nights”

According to the Mishnah, the Haggadah opens with questions meant to involve and raise the curiosity of the children. The Talmud, however, teaches (b. Pesaḥim 116a.):

ת”ר חכם בנו שואלו ואם אינו חכם אשתו שואלתו ואם לאו הוא שואל לעצמו ואפילו שני תלמידי חכמים שיודעין בהלכות הפסח שואלין זה לזה:

The rabbis have taught: If his son is a sage, he [the son] asks him [the father]. If he is not a sage, then his wife asks him. If not, he asks himself. Even two sages who know the laws of Passover must ask each other.

In other words, opening questions constitute a formal requirement of the Haggadah that must be recited even if all present are sages—they serve a mandatory rhetorical purpose. In both Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts, these questions would sometimes be planted in advance. Here too, the child would ideally present questions on his own, and only if he did not ask does the father teach him what to ask.^[8]

Opening with a question from the audience also serves to involve the listeners and motivate them to pay attention to the answer since an audience will be more interested and inclined to hear the speaker out if they had asked the question in the first place. In the Haggadah, these questions, whether asked by the child or prompted by the father, serve the purpose of the exordium.

While traditional Haggadot and printed editions of the Mishnah include four questions, the Haggadah found in Mishnah manuscripts, the Yerushalmi, and the Cairo Geniza, list only three.^[9] As m. Pesachim 10:4 continues:

[א] שבכל הלילות אין אנו מטבלים אפילו פעם אחת. הלילה הזה שתי פעמים.

[a] “that on all other nights we dip only once^[10] but on this night twice;

[ב] שבכל הלילות אנו אוכלים חמץ ומצה. הלילה הזה כולו מצה.

[b] “that on all other nights we eat leavened bred and unleavened bread but on this night it is all unleavened bread;

[ג] שבכל הלילות אנו אוכלים בשר צלי שלוק ומבושל. הלילה הזה כולו צלי.

[c] “that on all other nights we eat broiled, boiled, or cooked [meat] but on this night it is all broiled?”^[11]

2. Narration (m. Pesachim 10:4 cont.)

In Talmudic times, after the children had asked the question, the patriarch, sage, or father of the household would deliver the rest of the Haggadah to all present.^[12] The patriarch’s presentation accords with the structure of Greco-Roman oratory by opening with a narration of past events. As m. Pesaḥim 10:4 continues:

לפי דעתו שלבן אביו מלמדו. מתחיל בגנות ומסיים בשבח ודורש מ”ארמי אבד אבי” עד שהוא גומר כל הפרשה.

According to the understanding of the son does the father teach him. He begins with disgrace and concludes with praise and he expounds from “My father was a wandering Aramean” (Deuteronomy 26:5) until he finishes the entire pericope.

The Mishnah provides two guidelines for how to retell this narrative: the patriarch should speak on a level that the child understands and he should begin by recounting the shame of Israelite bondage and conclude by acclaiming the glory of their redemption. Since the goal of the oration is to bring the audience, including children and the less educated, to heartfelt gratitude and praise, it is essential that he speak at their level.

Furthermore, the audience must first empathize with the suffering of their ancestors in order to better appreciate the grandeur of their redemption. Stein notes that this formula accords with the elements “praise and blame” that comprise epideictic ceremonial orations, wherein one recounts a person’s humble beginnings to highlight their achievement.^[13]

The Mishnah then points to Deuteronomy 26:5-10 as the text that fulfills these very requirements.^[14]Since every farmer bringing first fruits to the Temple recited this text, it would have been well-known and easily repeated by heart.^[15] The text reviews the history of the nation from the time of the forefathers who had no homeland or national identity, through the period of slavery and redemption from Egypt, until the day when the farmer comes to live securely in Israel on his productive land. This text and its midrashic exposition makes up the narration section of the oration.

3. Partition (Mishna 10:5)

Following the narration section comes a pronouncement by Rabban Gamaliel that one must discuss three food items, which he first enumerates and then explains:

רבן גמליא’ או’. כל שלא אמ’ שלושה דברים אלו בפסח לא יצא ידי חובתו. פסח מצה ומרורים.

Rabban Gamaliel says: Whoever did not explain these three things on Passover has not fulfilled his obligation: [a] Passover, [b] unleavened bread, and [c] bitter herbs.

The enumeration, “Passover, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs,” serves as a partition that introduces the three points that are then elaborated upon to form the confirmation for the oration.^[16]

4. Confirmation (Mishna 10:5 cont.)

פסח – על שם שפסח המקום על בתי אבותינו במצרים.
מרורים – על שם שמררו המצריים את חיי אבותינו במצרים.
מצה – על שם שניגאלו.

Passover – because the Omnipresent passed over the houses of our forefathers in Egypt.
Bitter herbs because the Egyptians made the lives of our forefathers bitter.
Unleavened bread – because they were redeemed.

The very brief Mishnaic gloss on each item might have served only as a talking point upon which the live presenter would have elaborated.^[17] The three food items remind the participants of three distinct historical events: the Egyptian enslavement of the Israelites, God’s protection of the Israelites and punishment of the Egyptians, and God’s redemption of the Israelites. Each of these experiences contributes to the final point of the Haggadah, i.e., that we ought to praise God for His deliverance. These elements confirm the earlier narrative and proves the necessity for gratitude.^[18]

Once the family leader effectively convinces his audience of the greatness of God’s redemption of the Israelites, he can then move into the peroration calling upon those assembled to break into an enthusiastic Hallel or song of praise.

5. Conclusion (m. Pesachim 10:5 cont.)

לפיכך אנו חייבים להודות להלל לשבח לפאר לרומם לגדל למי שעשה לנו ולאבותינו את כל הניסים האילו והוציאנו מעבדות לחירות. ונאמר לפניו הללו יה.

Therefore, we are obliged to thank, laud, praise, glorify, exalt, and extol He who has done for us and for our forefathers all of these miracles and has released us from slavery to freedom and we will recite before Him, “Haleluyah.”

The final word “Haleluyah” introduces the recitation of the Hallel at Psalms 113-118. Hallel, which concludes the Mishnaic Haggadah,^[19] is actually the earliest component of the Passover liturgy—having been recited to accompany the preparation and consumption of the Passover sacrifice.^[20] Everything else in the Haggadah is a preface to it, progressively and artfully building up the feeling of gratitude among the participants in order to prepare them to sing the Hallel with a full heart.

Hallel as the Rhetorical Goal of the Seder

The creators of the Mishnaic Haggadah structured it as a work of Greco-Roman rhetorical oratory, the most common and effective means of persuasion available in their culture, precisely in order to achieve the liturgical goal of a heartfelt Hallel. Through a combination of the three classical modes of persuasion^[21]– logos (the telling of the history of the Exodus and the expounding of verses), pathos (feeling the suffering of slavery and the joy of redemption), and ethos (citations from the Bible and from sages like Rabban Gamaliel) – the audience experiences the magnitude of the Exodus at a personal level and so cannot help but break into a song of gratitude.

And so, although the style of this oration and so much of the ceremony of the night appears just like any other Roman drinking party—its content and goal make this symposium very different from all other symposia. More than a drinking party that happened to include fun intellectual discussion, the Rabbinic Passover meal incorporates food, drink, oratory, and song all in the service of a deep appreciation of the freedom we enjoy through God’s mighty hand.

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Footnotes

Published

3/26/2018

Last Updated

8/30/2021

This article is a reworked excerpt from Richard Hidary, Rabbis and Classical Rhetoric: Sophistic Education and Oratory in the Talmud and Midrash (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 68-73.
A classic description of a symposium comes from Plato’s dialogue of that name (176a):
When dinner was over, they poured a libation to the god, sang a hymn, and—in short—followed the whole ritual. They then turned their attention to drinking. At that point Pausanias addressed the group…
Siegfried Stein, “The Influence of Symposia Literature on the Literary Form of the Pesaḥ Haggadah,” Journal of Jewish Studies 8 (1957): 32-33; and Joseph Tabory, JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2008), 7 and 14. See also Michael Chernick, “The Pesach Seder of the First Mishnah” TheGemara.com (2016).
Baruch Bokser, The Origins of the Seder: The Passover Rite and Early Rabbinic Judaism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 52. Many of these elements are spelled out in the tenth chapter of m. Pesaḥim.
This point was made by, among others, Saul Lieberman, Ha-Yerushalmi ki-fshuto (Jerusalem: Hotsa’at Darom, 1934), 521; and Chanoch Albeck in his classic commentary on the Mishnah (m. Pesaḥim 1:8).
Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary, 1942), 66-67.
On Invention, I.19.
The text follows MS Kaufman. Translation follows the preferred explanation of Richard Steiner, “On the Original Structure and Meaning of Mah Nishtannah and the History of Its Reinterpretation,” Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal 7 (2008): 163-204.
It would make the most sense to expect the child to ask questions if this discussion took place after the meal—as was the order in Roman symposia—and the child had already witnessed these curious activities. See Tabory, JPS Commentary on the Haggadah, 10-11. Unlike the traditional Seder where the discussion precedes the meal, the Mishnah seems to dictate that the food is served and presumably eaten before the discussion. On the other hand, if the original order did have the discussion first, then it would be more understandable why the child would have to be taught to ask about the foods that have not yet been eaten.
Y. Pesaḥim 10:4, 37b; E. D. Goldschmidt, Haggadah shel Pesaḥ: meqoroteha ve-toldoteha (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1969), 10-13; Jay Rovner, “An Early Passover Haggadah According to the Palestinian Rite,” Jewish Quarterly Review 90, no. 3/4 (2000): 350-51; and Joseph Tabory, “How Many Questions in the “Four Questions’?” TheGemara.com (2017).
Following MS Parma. In Roman times, vegetables were generally dipped before the meal. Thus, in the original Haggadah, as preserved in Mishnah manuscripts, the first question about dipping twice is directed at the eating of maror. To paraphrase the question:, “On other nights we have one vegetable dipping during the appetizer; why on this night do we have another dipping during the meal of the maror ?” However, once the common practice of dipping before the meal ceased, this question was changed to: “On all other nights we do not dip even once….” Because the question now concentrated on the act of dipping itself, it became less obvious that the question concerned the eating of the maror. Therefore, a new question was added about why maror is eaten on this night. See Tabory ibid.; and Menachem Kasher, Haggadah shelemah (Jerusalem: Makhon Torah Shelemah, 1967), 112-16.
Jewish law requires that the Passover sacrifice be roasted, the original Haggadah includes a question {c} about why the participants eat only roasted meat on this night. This question would have been relevant during the Second Temple period and for some time afterwards when people still retained the practice of eating roasted meat. Bokser, Origins, 101-6. Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 204-5. However, by the Geonic era, this practice had been stamped out and the question was therefore dropped. As a replacement for the question about roasted meat, Haggadot from the Geonic period ask why only on this night do we eat while reclining. In Roman times when reclining was the common position for formal dining this question could not have been asked and so must have been added later. See Tabory, JPS Commentary on the Haggadah, 29-30.
This is evident from B. Pesaḥim 116b: “Meremar said, I asked the sages of the house of Rav Yosef, ‘Who recites the Haggadah in the house of Rav Yosef?’ They said, ‘Rav Yosef.’ ‘Who recites the Haggadah in the house of Rav Sheshet?’ They said, ‘Rav Sheshet.’”
Stein, “Influence of Symposia,” 36-37; and Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory: or, Education of an Orator in Twelve Books, trans. John Selby Watson (London: George Bell & Sons, 1892), 4.3.9-12. ↩
Tabory, JPS Commentary on the Haggadah, 33-37. By Amoraic times, Rav and Samuel introduced two other texts to fulfill the requirement of starting with shame and ending with glory (ibid., 32).
In addition, the Bikkurim recitation emphasizes gratitude, which is important for the structure of the Haggadah, which moves towards Hallel at its conclusion. ↩
The order of the partition differs from the order of the confirmation in MSS Kaufman and Parma and Geniza fragments T-S E1.57 and T-S E2.53 (all are equivalent to MS Kaufman, recorded and translated above). It seems that the partition follows the order of appearance in Numbers 9:10-11. In the confirmation, perhaps in order not to end on a bitter note, the bitter herbs are placed in the middle, and the redemption symbolized by the unleavened bread is saved for the end. In printed editions, the confirmation follows the order of the partition ending with bitter herbs. Printed editions also add a sentence, “In every generation, one must regard himself as if he had left Egypt,” followed fittingly by the exhortation to thank God. See Yaakov Nagen, Nishmat ha-Mishnah (Devir, 2016)166.
In fact, from Geonic times on, Haggadot include a full paragraph for each food item complete with biblical citations. See Rovner, “An Early Passover Haggadah,” 377-78.
The Mishnah lacks a separate section for refutation, which may have been deemed unnecessary in a family setting of willing participants. See also Israel Yuval, “Easter and Passover as Early Jewish Christian Dialogue,” in Passover and Easter: Origin and History to Modern Times, ed. Paul F. Bradshaw and Lawrence A. Hoffman (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999): 106-7, who reads Rabban Gamaliel’s requirement as a counter to early Christians who imbued these three foods with Christological symbolism. According to this, Raban Gamaliel’s statement also includes an element of refutation.
The liturgy of the Passover symposium is not yet called the Haggadah until Amoraic times (B. Pesaḥim 115b), but I use the term here anachronistically for convenience and as an application of Exodus 13:8.
M. Pesaḥim 5:7 and 9:3. Philo, The Special Laws, II.138 describes his contemporary Jews gathering in houses to feast on the Passover sacrifices while reciting prayers and Hallel. See Stein, “Influence of Symposia,” 21.
See Aristotle, On Rhetoric, I.2, 1356a; and Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, 6.2.8-17, who writes about three strategies of persuasion: logos draws on reason and logic, pathos appeals to emotion, and ethos builds upon citations from authoritative sources.

Dr. Rabbi Richard Hidary is an associate professor of Judaic studies at Yeshiva University and a rabbi at Sephardic Synagogue. Richard studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion, received his ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and a PhD from NYU. He has recently published Rabbis and Classical Rhetoric: Sophistic Education and Oratory in the Talmud and Midrash with Cambridge University Press. His first book, Dispute for the Sake of Heaven: Legal Pluralism in the Talmud, has been published by Brown University, and his articles appear in AJS Review, Conversations, Dine Israel, Encyclopedia Judaica, Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, The Jewish Review of Books, and Okimta. Rabbi Hidary also runs the websites teachtorah.org, pizmonim.org, and rabbinics.org.

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