Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig: The Seder: Adopting (from others) and Adapting (for us)
For any religion to flourish for 3500 years, it has to have developed a strong survival system. Judaism, probably the world’s oldest existing religion, has several: diaspora (not all Jews have lived in the same place for the past 2500 years); religious practice pluralism (almost always there’s been more than one approach to Jewish living), and adaptation (adjusting to changing circumstances and religious challenges by quasi-adoption of foreign practices). It is this latter approach that I’ll discuss here, using the upcoming Passover evening seder(s) as an exemplar of Jewish adaptability.
There was no Seder in the biblical period; it doesn’t appear anywhere until around the time the Second Temple was destroyed in 68 CE (Tractate Pesahim: 10). The Seder’s origin? The Hellenistic Symposium (“banquet”). The parallels are numerous.
First, Jews should recline on a couch – exactly what the Greeks did. In fact, Jews are required to recline on the left arm while eating – precisely the Greek custom at their Symposium dinner get-togethers.
Second, integral foods at the Seder are Khazeret (i.e., lettuce) and Kharoset (a mix of nuts, dates, and wine). These too the Greeks included in their Symposium – even though they were not foods for normal, general consumption. Third, at the Seder a “sandwich” is made from the sacrificial lamb: matzah and marror – again, just as the Greeks (Romans too) made a bread sandwich stuffed with lettuce.
Fourth, the four questions. Around the time of the Seder’s establishment, the Greek philosopher Plutarch suggested that at the Symposium the questions should be relatively easy so as not to confuse the unschooled. The Rabbis adopted this as the perfect recipe for drawing Jewish children into the Seder. Fifth and finally, when the children went to sleep, the Seder continued until dawn (the Haggadah’s “Five Rabbis in Bnei Brak”) – echoing Plato’s Symposium where the crowing rooster reminded those attending that it was long past the time to go home.
These are only a few of the parallels with the Hellenistic Symposium (for a more comprehensive list and explanations, especially the strange afikoman custom, see: https://schechter.edu/seder-and-the-symposium/).
Nevertheless, there’s an important caveat to all this: although the Seder copied the Greek Symposium’s general form, the Rabbis radically changed the content message. Whereas the Greeks and Romans discussed beauty and food, the adapted Seder focused on the Exodus from Egypt, God’s miracles, and ultimate Redemption. Moreover, the Seder democratized the Symposium concept that was an elite event; the Seder transformed the gathering into an educational experience for all Jews.
Religious adaptation, of course, can cut both ways. On the positive side, it enables a change of customary practice when circumstances make the former “religion” untenable. The classic and central example in Judaism occurred post-Second Temple when it became clear (several decades later) that the Temple cult would not be resuscitated. In their wisdom (and desperation), the rabbis completely transformed Judaism into a religion centered on Jewish scholarship and law. Indeed, the term used to describe this adaptive revolution – halakha – contains the notion of change: it means “the walking” i.e., forward movement.
On the other hand, the very idea that religious practice is malleable undercuts the notion of an eternal, God-given creed. And when the origin of specific changes in practice can be clearly traced to non-Jewish sources, such adaptive adoption becomes dangerous to true belief. The Passover Seder, of course, is not the only such adaptation (or adoption). Hanukkah, the “holiday of lights” is clearly connected to the pagan holiday of the winter solstice (celebrating the “revival” of the sun that can be detected by December 25 – from where Christianity also adapted its own holiday). Purim is clearly derived from the pagan “Carnival” – with its drinking, masking, and other forms of lightheadedness. And so on…
This explains a seeming conundrum among the ultra-Orthodox: after the 3rd or 4th grades, all male pupils are taught the Talmud, not the Bible. Certainly, in the higher yeshivas only Talmud is studied. Why? Because studying the Torah (the Bible) together with the Talmud would lead to significant cognitive dissonance, given how different (and occasionally even contradictory) these two Jewish sources are regarding numerous laws (one example among many: the Torah prescribes capital punishment for dozens of transgressions; but the Talmud states that a court executing once in 7 or 70 years is a “hanging court” [Mishnah, chap. 1, Tractate Makot, Law 10]).
To be sure, such “discrepancies” can always be “explained away.” The Rabbis’ clever explanation: God gave Moses the Written Law and the Oral Law simultaneously, the latter interpreting the former. But outright contradictions are harder to explain in this fashion. In any case, admitting that the Law has been adapted to a radically changed situation is more honest – and that’s what the Talmud’s rabbis actually do on occasion, as when they tell God to stay out of their decision-making process (Tractate Bava Metzia, 59:a-b). They’re in charge now!
What all this means is that the main denominational fracture in contemporary Judaism between Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism, is not over whether the religion should continue adapting itself to changed circumstances, but how fast and to what extent. Only the ultra-Orthodox don’t agree that any adaptation is in order (which is ironic, given that their most emblematic garb, the black fur “Shtreimel,” was adopted directly from the gentile, Polish aristocracy a few hundred years ago).
So this coming week, as Jews around the world sit down at the Passover Seder, we should all celebrate not only the historic exile from Egypt, but even more the fantastic adaptability of Judaism to overcome other tragedies and societal challenges. That’s a worthy topic to discuss during this classic Jewish symposium.
