Korban Chagigah from the Torah to the Seder Plate

I present the Passover ritual in Deuteronomy mainly because it is from this week’s parasha.  However, many scholars consider it to be earlier than the similar law in Exodus, which is generally attributed to the Priestly source.  There is a long debate in modern scholarship about the Documentary Hypothesis about which of these two sources is earlier; the details of this debate do not concern us here.  It is possible or even likely that underlying P in Exodus 12 the Torah retains vestiges of an earlier version of the Passover ritual (earlier, at any rate, than the 8th-into-the-7th century traditions that resulted in D).  See, for example, William Propp’s presentation in his Anchor Bible commentary, which treats the Exodus ritual as a conflation of P and (a presumably much earlier) E; William Henry Propp, Exodus 1-18 : A New Translation With Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 373-382.

Although it is possible to dismiss the contradictions by suggesting that Exodus is only a reference to what the Israelites did in Egypt, and that, although they are told to keep “this ritual” for all time (v. 24), that doesn’t necessarily mean all the details (like how they are dressed, how it is cooked, etc.), nevertheless, it is reasonable to read the Exodus text as prescriptive.  

Biblical Hebrew חודש, chodesh, frequently means “New Moon” (i.e., Rosh Hodesh); see, e.g., Rashi at Exodus 19:1.

Sacrificial meat that would be consumed would be boiled in a pot (Leviticus 6:21; see 1 Sam 2:13-14). In the Bible, the root ב-ש-ל always refers to boiling, never to generic cooking, as in modern Hebrew.

It is true that later Jewish tradition construes this differently than I have presented it (see, e.g., Rashi, ad. loc.); we shall return to this distinction, below.

I say retelling, because the same story appears in the earlier work, Kings (2Kings 23). In that work, however, the description of the Passover sacrifice hews closely to that of Deuteronomy exclusively. This is expected, since 2Kings is part of the Deuteronomistic history, which does not recognize P.

Jeffrey H. Tigay, in his commentary on Deuteronomy 16:2 (p. 153), summarizes the issue nicely: “According to Exodus 12:3–5 and 21, the pesah offering was brought only from the flock… The present verse, which permits bovines as well, is inconsistent with that. Halakhic exegesis resolved the conflict in favor of Exodus, limiting the pesah offering to sheep and goats and taking the large cattle of our verse as referring to extra offerings in honor of the festival.”

On inner biblical interpretation, see Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1988).

 The tenth chapter of Mishna Pesahim contains the earliest rabbinic rules for the Seder; see Baruch M. Bokser, The Origins of the Seder: The Passover Rite and Early Rabbinic Judaism(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).   

See, for example, the 12^th century Italian commentary of Menechem ben Salomon (Sekhel Tov):

There was no seder plate in the sense we have it now during this period.

See Rashbam’s comment, ad. loc., and Tosafot, s.v. שני מיני בשר.

See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Law of Hametz and Matzah (8:1). But cf. Maggid Mishneh and Hagahot Maimonithere.

And I am skeptical, as well, that the gloss of R. Moshe Isserles (on Shulchan Arukh 476:2) preserves anything more than a farfetched and after-the-fact justification of a practice whose origins he really does not understand:

הגה: נוהגים בקצת מקומות לאכול בסעודה ביצים זכר לאבילות ונראה לי הטעם משום שליל תשעה באב נקבע בליל פסח ועוד זכר לחורבן שהיו מקריבין קרבן פסח ויש נוהגין שלא לאכול שום טבול בלילה רק ב’ טיבולים שעושים בסדר

In some places, they are accustomed to eat eggs, in remembrance for the mourning [over the destruction of the Temple].  The reason for this seems to me to be that [the day of] Tisha B’av is [calendrically] determined by [the date of] Passover Eve. Moreover, it is a remembrance of the destruction of the Temple, in which Passover sacrifices were offered.

 See, e.g., David Adams Leeming, “Easter,” in The Oxford Companion to World Mythology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 111.  A variety of popular presentations of legends and practices may be found at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg.  These customs may, in fact, be of even more ancient provenance than is usually assumed.   See the interview, entitled “Egg Cetera #6: Hunting for the world’s oldest decorated eggs,” with University of Cambridge archaeologist Brian Stewart, at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/egg-cetera-6-hunting-for-the-world’s-oldest-decorated-eggs