April 8, 2025|י' ניסן ה' אלפים תשפ"ה The Taste of Redemption: Maror as a Spiritual Condiment By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

My two brothers were here this past Shabbat, and having them over a week before Pesach brought back vivid memories of our childhood sedarim. Among them, Streit’s Soup Nuts—those bland, airy mandlen I adored in my matzah ball soup. I would stockpile boxes for seder night. But more relevant for our topic at hand was our annual maror competition. Armed with ground horseradish, my brothers and I would see who could eat the most before caving and gulping water. These playful contests captured the maror's bite but also raised a deeper question: How should we fulfill this mitzvah? Must maror truly be bitter? Some of us rely on romaine lettuce, while others endure the tear-inducing sting of freshly grated horseradish. Some, unsure of the ideal approach, we hedge our bets and consume both.

The History of Maror

The Mishnah (Pesachim 2:6) lists five vegetables suitable for maror, with chazeret—lettuce—topping the list. The Gemara (Pesachim 39a) associates chazeret with God’s mercy (chas), reflecting how He redeemed us from Egypt. The Yerushalmi (Pesachim 2:5) adds that chazeret starts sweet but turns bitter, paralleling our initial ease in Egypt that hardened into bitter slavery. Wild lettuce (Lactuca serriola), common in Israel, aligns with this description—its leaves grow bitter with age, and its stalks release a bitter white sap.

Despite lettuce's primacy in halacha, horseradish emerged as a maror substitute in medieval Europe, its use becoming widespread by the 17th century. While some rabbinic authorities resisted this innovation—arguing the Mishnah permits leaves and stems, not roots—others, like the Chatam Sofer, preferred horseradish due to challenges in cleaning lettuce of bugs. By the 19th century, the practice was entrenched, though debates lingered. Rav Soloveitchik reportedly ate both lettuce and horseradish to fulfill the mitzvah.

Why Maror? Why Bitterness?

Maror is meant to remind us of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt, but this raises a perplexing issue: If its purpose is remembrance, why does the Torah obligate maror only when eaten with the korban pesach? Today, without the Temple, maror is only a rabbinic mitzvah, suggesting its primary Torah role was ancillary—enhancing the korban pesach. This is evident from three points:

1. According to the Gemara (Pesachim 120a), no Torah obligation for maror exists without thekorban pesach.
2. According to the Rambam (Mitzvah 56), maror is not an independent mitzvah but part of thekorban pesachmitzvah.
3. According to the Rosh (Pesachim 10:25), the Torah doesn't require eating a fullkezayitof maror with thekorban pesach if not for the fact that we recite a blessing of achilat maror which—its role is to enhance, not stand alone.

The Dual Themes of Maror

Without the korban pesach, Chazal redefined maror to focus on its symbolism: the bitterness of slavery. This helps us appreciate redemption. There is a Torah obligation is to tell the story of yetziat Mitzrayim on the night of the seder and the mishna states that the way to do this is matchil bignut u’mesayem bishvach. We start with the bad and finish with the good. The more that we focus on how bad the slavery was, the greater we will appreciate what God did for us. Not only do we tell the bitterness of Egyptian slavery on seder night, but the rabbis told us to use a visual aid and to eat that visual aid. That visual aid is the maror which symbolizes the bitterness to engender greater celebration for God freeing us from the bonds of slavery.

The maror also underscores the intrinsic value of hardship. Slavery molded us into a nation utterly dependent on God. It also instilled compassion and justice, reminding us, "You were strangers in Egypt." Nechama Leibowitz notes that tasting slavery equips us to empathize with the oppressed.

Bitterness also refines our faith. The Sfat Emet teaches that even in life’s bitterest moments, God is with us, shaping our journey. 

Rav Nachman of Breslov once told the story of a Jew and a German who were traveling together as wanderers. The Jew taught the German to pretend to be a Jew, explaining that Jews are compassionate and would have mercy on him. As Pesach approached, the Jew taught the German how to behave so that the head of the household would invite him for the Seder. He explained everything about the order of the Seder—how they make Kiddush, wash their hands, and so on—but forgot to tell him about eating maror.

When the German arrived at the Seder, he was hungry from the whole day, eagerly anticipating the delicious foods the Jew had described. Instead, they gave him a piece of karpas dipped in saltwater, followed by the other rituals of the Seder. While they recited the Haggadah, his eyes were fixed on the table, eagerly awaiting the meal. When the time came to eat, he was thrilled, thinking they were finally serving the delicious food. But suddenly, they gave him maror. Its bitterness filled his mouth, and he assumed this was the entire meal.

 

In his bitterness and hunger, he fled immediately, cursing the Jews in his heart: "Cursed Jews! After all that ceremony, this is what they eat?!" He went to the synagogue and fell asleep there. Later, the Jew arrived at the synagogue, his face full of joy, satisfied from the food and drink.

 

The Jew asked, "How was your Seder?" The German angrily recounted what had happened. The Jew said, "Oh, foolish German! If you had waited just a little longer, you would have eaten all the good food, just like me."

 

If maror is eaten on its own, then we are focusing on the value of bitterness, either as a contrast to the sweetness of redemption or as a value in its own right to shape our narrative of absolute surrender to God, of a sense of responsibility for the underprivileged, and to reinforce the belief that God walks with us even in the most bitter of times. Perhaps, then, the taste of maror should be a distinctly bitter taste.

Maror as Charif

In Temple times, however, maror served as a condiment to the korban pesach. The Or HaChaim (Shemot 12:8) describes maror as a sharp kick to enhance and sweeten the taste of the korban pesach. Think of maror like the “charif” in a shawarma: not bitterness for its own sake but a flavor that elevates the dish. That is why there is no Torah obligation to eat maror when there is no korban pesach, there is no independent mitzvah to eat maror when there is a korban pesach and absent the requirement for a bracha, there is no obligation to eat a kzayit or maror. 

According to this approach, the maror does not describe our suffering in slavery; rather it describes our state of mind when we slaughtered the korban pesach. The korban pesach represented courage and faith—slaughtering Egypt’s gods while in a state of maror, enslaved and spiritually downtrodden. Maror’s bite accentuates the heroism of such devotion, just as a spicy condiment sharpens the enjoyment of a meal.

Maror’s Torah message transcends suffering. It celebrates sacrifice and conviction even amidst hardship, inspiring us to face challenges with courage. The Beit HaLevi adds that mitzvot like maror transcend history. He teaches that the mitzvot are eternal; they have existed since the beginning of time. This is why the Avot intuited and observed them in some form. The mitzvot are not merely responses to historical events—they transcend time. Rather than the mitzvot stemming from redemption, God performed the miracles of Yetziat Mitzrayim to deepen our connection to these already-existing mitzvot. In other words, the redemption from Egypt was not the cause of the mitzvot of Pesach; rather, it provided an opportunity to experience them with even greater meaning, in light of the miracles that took place. 

The mitzvot of maror and korban pesach teach us the value of sacrifice in our own lives even when we are in a state of maror and the story of yetziat mitzrayim provides a narrative to connect us with this value, a story to inspire us to live up to the values reflected in the maror eaten with the korban pesach. Maror paired with korban pesach teaches us that when life is challenging, our sacrifices have profound spiritual flavor, even more so than when they are not as challenging.

Had there been a Torah obligation of maror even now, without the mitzvah of korban pesach, then we would not have appreciated the difference between the two different themes of this mitzvah, both the Biblical and the rabbinic theme. Yes, Chazal tell us that there is a rabbinic obligation to eat maror by itself to appreciate our story of redemption better and to appreciate the value of bitterness in our lives. According to this approach, our maror should be bitter, but in reality, the Torah’s perspective of maror is that this mitzvah is about commitment, sacrifice and embracing the maror in our lives, and how doing that makes our sacrifices even greater.

Embracing the Challenge

The story of yetziat Mitzrayim inspires us each and every year, but this year, the stories of the korban pesach that our holy hostages practiced while tasting their maror have been nothing short of inspiring. Agam Berger fasting on Yom Kippur and avoiding chametz during Pesach by requesting corn flour from her captors, keeping kosher and refraining from cooking for her captors on Shabbat. Daniella Gilboa learning to recite Shalom Aleichem in Arabic because her captors would not allow her to sing Shalom Aleichem in Hebrew. Keith Siegel starting to recite the Shema and brachot each and every day of captivity. When we read these stories, how can we not want to give our all each and every day trying to push ourselves and grow and embrace the maror, not as something bitter, but as a means to push us even more. Not simply following halacha, but looking to be bnei aliya, to push ourselves, to offer the korban pesach, while being nourished by the challenge of the maror as an opportunity to help us continue to grow.

 

If we truly approach the maror like the Or Hachaim does, that the maror is a sharp taste to make the korban pesach more enjoyable, then the imagery of eating maror with the korban pesach while we serve God is not simply reactive. It is not simply that we should persevere like the hostages when we find ourselves in a maror situation. Perhaps the Or Hachaim is teaching us that maror is not only reactive, but it is also proactive. Eating maror with the korban pesach is like when you jog on a treadmill. Yes, you can run with little resistance and feel good about your run, but what if you increase the incline level so that it’s more difficult to run? What if you increase resistance on a bike workout? When you push yourself as you exercise with greater resistance, you don’t believe that you are suffering. You use the increased incline or resistance to build strength and this leads to a greater sense of accomplishment. Similarly, the sharpness of the maror amplifies the sweetness of our efforts symbolized by the korban pesach. Of course, in the times of the beit hamikdash, we eat the matzah, as well as the maror and korban pesach, because the matza represents haste, speed and alacrity, highlighting that our sacrifices for God should be done with passion and energy while embracing any maror, any challenge, in achieving our goals. 

 

The Torah’s vision of korban pesach with maror inspires us to embrace a spiritually growth-oriented lifestyle, one where like when I was younger, I embraced the opportunity to eat the sharp maror as an experience. May we all live your lives of inspiration and view any resistance or challenge like we would if you were adding resistance to a bike ride or an incline to a jog – just another opportunity to achieve more and be more successful. May Hashem guide you to lead lives like a holy shawarma—giving your all like the korban pesach, with the energy of matzah and the strength of maror. Together, may we merit to fulfill al matzot u’merorim yochluhu with joy and meaning.