by Rabbi Jan Caryl Kaufman, delivered at Minyan M'at

Imagine the scene, 8 11th grade boys 2 days before Pesah vacation dressed in togas. Why? Is this spring bacchanalia? Is it so nuts before vacation, that the kids come to school and think this is Animal House. Hardly! It’s all in the name of solid scholarship. There is no way that 11th graders, especially a group of smart kids, will go through yet another model seder, but we all know that Pesah time is for parents and grandparents the apex of nachas. From the time a kid is four, dressed in her or his yontiff at the seder and knows the manishtanah, there goes the refrain – this is worth every penny of that tuition money – especially if grandparents are present at the seder table. But what to do with 11th grade honors Talmud students? In the spring of 1987, I took a break from the study of gemara with the 11th grade class to explore the question of the origins of the seder. Our friend Rabbi Baruch Bokser, z”l’s the Origins of the Seder had been published only a few years previously and it was time that the 11th grade know that solid academic scholarship was alive and well in the halls of JTS. After all, the first day of every class, I made my students learn the term Wissenschaft des Judentums and learn how to spell it. A fine Talmudic scholar with a deep sense of religious piety was how many of us remember Baruch and it is his work we will explore this morning, albeit without the togas. I was honored when Binyamin asked me to deliver the d’var Torah for Shabbat Hagadol, which in the custom of our minyan is delivered in memory of our teacher, Rabbi Baruch Bokser, z”l.

The question we explore is whether the seder was really a Greek symposium. Now, I’ve never seen a Greek symposium except the PBS version of Platonic dialogues. It looks like a lot of fun – a bunch of guys in togas engaged in intellectual discourse, lounging around reclining, drinking good wine and eating good food. Sound familiar?

How do we learn about the liturgy of the seder? We first learn about Pesah in Parasha Bo (Exodus, chapter 12). You know the story, each household is commanded to sprinkle the blood of the Pesah sacrifice on its doorpost. The ceremony evolved into the responsibility of the Levites to enact each year. From the 20 passages in the Bible that describe Pesah, we do not learn about a seder. There is only the commandment in Exodus 12:12, 12:27 and Deuteronomy 16:1 to tell the story. Nothing about a liturgy and certainly nothing about holding a seder at night.

What brought us from the biblical commandments to what we now know as the haggadah. In the 1950’s Sigfried Stein in an article in the Journal of Jewish Studies proffers several reasons:
1. The expansion of the liturgy after the destruction of the Temple.
2. An increase in the writing of midrash beginning with Christianity.
3. An attempt to organize resistance against Rome.
4. Attempt to explain the antiquity of the Jewish people

Professor Stein claims the influence of the Greek symposium on the development of the haggadah and Rabbi Bokser in his book The Origins of the Seder, contends that much of the literary form of the haggadah can be traced to the mishnah. No doubt, Rabbi Bokser admits that this liturgy developed in a Greco-Roman historical context but he claims it is an indigenous Jewish form.

Stein argues that if one looks at the elements of the Seder like the ceremonial washing of the hands (urhatz), the h’ors d’oeuvres (carpas), the Afikomen and reclining, they are elements of a Greek symposium. Carpas and Afikomen are clearly Greek words. None of these elements have sacred roots although Stein understands that we make the profane sacred (e.g., just look at what we do with the lulav and etrog - ancient fertility rites over which we now make a brachah. The influence of the Symposium goes even beyond dinner habits. The Symposium was a banquet held by a few learned men who met at a friend’s house to discuss philosophical issues. They discussed these over a barrel of wine after they had eaten. What is a Symposium? According to Rabbi Bokser’s definition, a Symposium is a Greek dinner party with lots of wine, light conversation signing and entertainment (some of it by women of questionable character). There are no details prescribed for the discourse and no rules on which authorities can be quoted so it could be easily adapted to the form of the haggadah.

Even before the haggadah was compiled, there were elements of symposium literature in Jewish-Hellenistic writings. For instance, in the Letter of Aristeas which records the story of Palestinian Jews who went to Alexandria to translate the Bible in Greek, the Jews inaugurated their deliberations with a banquet. Stein claims that whatever descriptions there are in the Jewish-Hellenistic writings of the Paschal sacrifice reflect Greek custom. OK, so someone writing about Pesah sedarim in 21st century America, would talk about American elements- like the frogs we have on our tables.

But Stein claims that the story of the scholars at B’nai B’rak is a symposium. Tell that to the guys in B’nai B’rak now, probably no one in B’nai Brak has even heard let alone read Plato, Socrates or Aristotle. What about Kiddush, Hallel and Nishmat (you know, the part that comes at the end of the seder that many of us skip or mumble through)? Often at a Greek symposium the first element was to sing praise to Bacchus, just like making Kiddush. Even the Ma Nishtanah is like the introductory question raised at a Symposium.

And what about the distaff side? Do you think these Greek symposia were egalitarian? Dream on – the only women were of the questionable sort – the kind my mother said smart Jewish girls aren’t. But while the mishnah teaches that the husband is to prepare the meal for his wife and children, there are sages like the first century amora Joshua Ben Levi who says a woman is commanded to drink the four cups of wine in the Exodus. After all, we were all, men, women, children and even future generations, redeemed from Mitzrayim.

Along comes Rabbi Baruch Bokser some 30 years later who refutes this long-standing piece of scholarship about the origins of the seder. He admits that the striking affinities between a seder and a symposium may cause one to think the seder is a Jewish symposium. Intellectual discussions like those of the Seder had a place at Greco-Roman symposia and the rabbis did belong to Hellenistic and Roman societies, but . . .

The impetus for the celebration is the need for the continuity with the past and overcoming the loss of the Paschal lamb. The communal meal for Bokser is not a Hellenistic invention. The Torah describes Passover as a rite at a meal. Exodus 12 is a model for a home celebration around a meal and the central element in eating the Paschal lamb. Was there a meal even without the Paschal sacrifice? Probably so even after the destruction of the Temple because Passover always involved more than offering a sacrifice and eating the lamb. It has wider historical meaning for the Jewish people – it is a testament to God’s saving act of redeemed the Hebrews. People who wanted to celebrate Passover would have adopted the setting of a meal – very Jewish indeed.

Bokser admits that meals did take on a greater importance among Jews in Roman and Hellenistic times (so, what else is new?) but these gatherings did not take over an established Hellenistic institution. While in Bokser’s view, there is no evidence of a communal Passover meal in the pre-rabbinic period without a karban Pesah, there were other communal meals. For instance, the Pharissees (whose descendents we are) used the form of a celebratory meal to express its theology – for they wanted to destroy the underpinning of the priesthood and its attendant sacrificial cult. They wanted to show you could have a meal without the karban Pesah.

When the Temple was destroyed, the Jews lost the institutions that provided meaning and direction to their piety but they wanted to maintain their ancestral values. Therefore, they had to create a substitute institution which became the Passover Seder. Bokser claims the Seder is a transference – the impetus to develop the meal comes not from the Greek symposium but the religious situation of the Jews at the time. Early rabbinic authorities realized their system had to replace the Temple cult. In others, you might get what you wish for!

The meal appears prominent among several Jews groups as a way to celebrate key religious moments. Clearly, Hellenistic influences increased receptivity to Hellenistic features in Jewish rituals. No doubt rabbinic circles drew upon banquet practices but it is unlikely they were prompted to expand the biblical rite through observing the symposium.

The Mishnah certainly could have been influenced by the Symposium structure – when it standardizes the practice of early rabbinic Judaism in the observance of Pesah. We know that you can adopt the elements of your surrounding culture and not assimilate into it. We all remember the mantra of Beyond the Melting Pot by Moynihan and Glazer – that we can acculturate and not assimilate. This community does it well. The mishnah requires everyone to participate in the Seder – it is not exclusionary like Greek Symposia. The eating and dipping of food twice and other features become mitzvoth – not common to other meals. Unlike the symposia, the Seder should not degenerate into frivolity, no women of questionable character. After dinner revelry is proscribed in the Seder ritual, not so in the symposium.

So we learn from our beloved teacher that the Seder has its origins in the mishnah – firmly grounded in Jewish text. Of course, we pick up elements of our surroundings and integrate them into our rituals, but it does not make them less Jewish.

Back to the 11th graders, in togas and garlands , with kippot on and mishnah in hand arguing based on the text the Origins of the Seder. Two years later, I gave an essay question on an exam based on the Mishnah and the scholarly arguments of Stein and Bokser. I called Baruch and asked him if he wanted to see what some 11th grade students wrote about his work. I assured him, it wasn’t graduate school scholarship but the A papers were carefully done. The 5 students who received A’s typed their blue books and I sent them to Baruch. The kids said, “Rabbi Jan, you mean, you know him and you can just call him?” Indeed I had that honor. In 1987 and 1989, it was to honor Baruch’s contribution to Jewish scholarship and now we perpetuate his memory and teach his legacy. May his memory be for a blessing.

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