Make a Sandwich of Matzah and Maror
Distribute more Maror and Charoset on pieces of Matzah.
Charoset is a smooth mixture of various chopped fruits
including apples, and nuts, as well as wine and spices. It represents the
mixture of clay and straw from which we made the mortar during our bondage.
It also calls to mind the women of Israel who bore their children in secret
beneath the apple trees of Egypt, and, like the apple tree that first produces
fruit and then sprouts leaves to protect the fruit, our heroic mothers first
bore children without any assurance of security or safety. This beautiful
and militant devotion sweetened the misery of slavery, even as we dip our
bitter herbs in Charoset. The pattern of our celebration is the mixture
of the bitter and the sweet, sadness and joy, of tales of shame that end
in praise.
And when we see the tragedies of our own time, we sweeten this bitter
taste with the thought of the liberation that is yet to come.
Hillel, a rabbi who lived during the first century of the Common Era,
invented the sandwich. This sandwich is his foundation of the Seder, a concentrated version
of the three symbols Rabban Gamliel
stressed according to the biblical command: "Together with unleavened
bread and bitter herbs they shall eat the paschal lamb (the last replaced
by the Charoset)."
Eat the Hillel Sandwich.
Last modified on 24, March, 1997
