Shankbone and Egg: How They Became Symbols on the Seder Plate

Printed editions of Mishnah Pesahim 10:3 refer to “two cooked dishes,” but these words are missing in all manuscripts and are almost certainly not original.  

Baruch Bokser’s groundbreaking work on the tenth chapter of Mishnah Pesahim emphasizes the attempt to create the impression that various post-70 Passover rituals originated in Temple times; see Baruch Bokser, The Origins of the Seder (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). See also Shamma Friedman, תוספתא עתיקתא מסכת פסח ראשון: מקבילות המשנה והתוספתא פירוש ומבוא כללי [Tosefta Atiqta Pesah Rishon: Synoptic Parallels of Mishna and Tosefta Analyzed with a Methodological Introduction] (Ramat-Gan: Bar-llan University Press, 2002), 437.

^{שמות יב:ט} אַל תֹּאכְלוּ מִמֶּנּוּ נָא וּבָשֵׁל מְבֻשָּׁל בַּמָּיִם כִּי אִם צְלִי אֵשׁ רֹאשׁוֹ עַל כְּרָעָיו וְעַל קִרְבּוֹ.

^{Exod 12:9} Do not eat any of it raw, or cooked in any way with water, but roasted—head, legs, and entrails—over the fire.

Deuteronomy 16:7 says that the paschal offering should be boiled, nevertheless, already in the book of Chronicles this contradiction was “solved” by interpreting the word boiling in Deuteronomy to mean roasting:

^{דברי הימים ב לה:יג} וַיְבַשְּׁלוּ הַפֶּסַח בָּאֵשׁ כַּמִּשְׁפָּט וְהַקֳּדָשִׁים בִּשְּׁלוּ בַּסִּירוֹת וּבַדְּוָדִים וּבַצֵּלָחוֹת וַיָּרִיצוּ לְכָל בְּנֵי הָעָם.

^{2 Chron 35:13} They boiled the paschal sacrifice in fire, as prescribed, while the sacred offerings they cooked in pots, cauldrons, and pans, and conveyed them with dispatch to all the people.

The rabbis too take the law of Exodus, that it must be roasted,  as normative (e.g., Mekhilta deRi, Pascha 6; Mekhilta de-Rashbi 13:5); see discussion in, Robert Harris, “Korban Chagigah: From the Torah to the Seder Plate,” TheTorah (2015).

See David Henshke, מה נשתנה: ליל הפסח בתלמודם של חכמים  [‘Mah Nishtannah’: The Passover Night in the Sages’ Discourse] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2016), 333.

See Baruch Bokser, “From Sacrifice to Symbol and Beyond,” The Solomon Goldman Lectures 5 (1990): 1–19.

See Joseph Tabory, פסח דורות: פרקים בתולדות ליל הסדר [The Passover Ritual Throughout the Generations] (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1996), 107.

דתניא, רבי יוסי אומר: אף על פי שטיבל בחזרת מצוה להביא לפניו חזרת וחרוסת ושני תבשילין...

For it was taught, R. Yose says: Though he has [already] dipped the lettuce, it is a mitzvah to bring before him lettuce and charoset and two cooked dishes.

The R. Naftali Tzvi Berlin, Ha’emek She’alah, on Sheiltot 73, p. 43, proposes that R. Huna identified rice as one of the dishes because this dish is in memory of the pesach, and rice was already not eaten on Pesah during the Talmudic period. However, this interpretation is clearly doubly anachronistic (rice was certainly eaten by most Jews on Pesah during the Talmudic period and the two cooked dishes were also eaten).

In fact, this combination of dishes, which the Mishnah describes as a point of agreement between the two, is a matter of dispute according to the Tosefta’s account (Yom Tov 2:4):

אמ' ר' שמעון בן לעזר מודים בית שמיי ובית הלל שהן שני תבשילין על מה נחלקו על הדג והביצה שעליו שבית שמיי או' תבשיל אחד ובית הלל או' שני תבשילין מודים שאם בישל שני מינין בקדירה או שפירפר ביצה על גבי הדג או שחתך קפלוט תחת הדג שהן שני תבשילין

Simon ben Lazar said: Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel agree that two cooked foods are necessary. About what did they argue? About a fish with an egg on top. For Beit Shammai says: “This is one cooked dish,” and Beit Hillel says: “These are two cooked dishes.” They agree that if two different items were cooked in a pot, or if he crumbled an egg on a fish, or if he cut a leek under the fish, that these are two cooked dishes.

Simon ben Lazar’s interpretation of the debate between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel is stricter. In his understanding, two objects cooked together in one dish do not count as two cooked dishes. Thus, an egg cracked on top of a fish and cooked together count as one cooked dish and not two. However, if the egg is cooked separately and then crumbled on top of the fish, this counts as two dishes.

Tabory, The Passover Ritual, 113.  

The earliest appearance of these three animals in juxtaposition seems to be Leviticus Rabbah 22:10, p. 523, ed. Margoliot. 2 Baruch 29:4 (p. 630, ed. Charlesworth), refers to “behemoth” (=shor habor) and Leviathan as foods God will provide at the end of time. See also Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 33 and the notes on pp. 38-39.

https://www.gobergrassfed.com/post/seasonality-of-eggs

In fact, this is how his position is quoted in the Tosafot (ad loc.). See discussion in David Metzger, ed., פירושי רבינו חננאל למסכת פסחים [The Commentary of R. Hananel on Tractate Pesachim], פירושי רבינו חננאל בר חושיאל לתלמוד [The Commentary of R. Hananel ben Hushiel to the Talmud] (Jerusalem: Machon Lev Sameach, 5751), 246 [nn 344 and 345].

The text here is from, Nissan Zacks, ed., הלכות רב אלפס לרבנו יצחק ב"ר יעקב אלפסי [The Halakhot of Rav Alfas by Rabbeinu Isaac son of R. Jacob Alfasi] (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1969), 1.223.

For the meaning of this term “guarded matzot,” see Joshua Kulp, “Shemurah Matzah: Guarded from Water and for a Mitzvah,” TheTorah (2014).

Perhaps we have a melding here of two symbolic sets of meaning: 1) two foods, both meat, in memory of two sacrifices; 2) three foods, in memory of three messengers. The Orchot Chayyim’s tradition retains the dominant trend to have two foods, but also retains one of the foods from the second tradition, and therefore must add on a layer of symbolic meaning.

This reference is not found in the Yerushalmi. Concerning this phenomenon of quotations misattributed to the Yerushalmi, see Uziel Fuchs, Studies in Rabbi Isaac of Vienna’s Or Zarua, M.A. dissertation (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1993) 112–114.  

This connection likely suggested the pun about the egg to R. Aharon.

See Joshua Kulp, The Schechter Haggadah (Jerusalem: Schechter Press, 2009), 239-240.

See Shulchan Arukh OH 476 and commentaries. For a recent discussion of Sephardi custom see R. Ovadiah Yosef, Hazon Ovadiah, part 1, volume 2, pp. 769–785. Roughly, the term Ashkenazi refers to Jews from Christian Europe (not including Spain and Portugal), while Sephardi refers to Jews from Muslim countries.

See Tabory, The Passover Ritual, 116, who cites R. Shlomo Luria (16^th century Poland) as the earliest authority to note that these foods were not eaten.