A SYNTHESIS OF THE PASSOVER RITUAL AND LITURGY
WITH THE TWELVE STEPS OF RECOVERY
5 CHAROSES
Before the Seder begins we prepare a dish of chopped fruit and nuts. (Symbolizing the mortar we used building Pharaoh's cities in Egypt). This is the Charoses into which we dip the bitter herb before eating it. Its main ingredients are Apple, Walnuts, Cinnamon and Wine.I. The Apple is our symbol for LOVE the main ingredient in the Charoses. When Egyptians saw Jews multiplying, in spite of Draconian programs aimed at controlling Jewish birth rate. They tried preventing men and women getting together; by so arranging work-shifts and timetables that married couples would never have time alone together. Jewish Women took the initiative. Acting in concert they packed lunches for their husbands and went down to their work places on the building sites. When the men were allowed to stop for a break, their wives led them into nearby fields to enjoy privacy. When Hashem saw their intent, He caused apple orchards to spring up wherever couples went to picnic. And in those orchards the Jewish people was conceived as it is written (Song of Songs): "Beneath the Apple tree I aroused you. There your mother birthed you, where she herself was born".
The playful nature of their lovemaking is also considered important by the Rabbis in an appreciation of that epoch. A romantic interlude described in the Midrash vignettes a scene:
The couple are seated beneath the apple tree, in the privacy afforded by its drooping, blossom-laden branches. He has enjoyed the food she prepared. She takes the cosmetics from her reticule and begins to "make" her face. Looking at herself in the mirror she remarks to her husband: "Which of us is more beautiful, do you think?" He leans closer to peer at his face beside her in the mirror....
( Those very mirrors the women used when applying cosmetics, were given an elevated status in the Temple Building Fund towards which they were later donated. Moses was instructed to take and cast them into the Great Copper Laver from which the priests drew water to prepare their hands and feet before services in the Temple.)
This little story has meanings on many levels of scholarship. In order to fully appreciate its significance, know that the reference to the birth of the mother in the verse from Song of Songs, alluded to a Cabalistic principle known as "The Field of Holy Apples" or the Shechina, the dwelling presence of the Creator. That spot in the Temple where the Presence of Hashem was seen in fire, crouching like a lion, was known as the Apple.
When Hashem told Avraham our forefather that we his descendants would be slaves in Egypt for 400 years, Hashem promised not to forsake us. Even assuring Avraham that He Hashem would go into exile with us. This then was the Field of Holy Apples where we were conceived, The Shechina.
The apple is bound up with the prime number 5 and the Hebrew letter HEH. The number of seeds in the apple is 5. The number of bumps on the bottom of the apple are 5. So its shape and associations, e.g. the way the seed is suspended in womblike cells where decomposition must precede germination all have added to the layers of meaning evoked by this symbol.
II. The walnut is notorious for its "Klipah", its shells. Before we can get at the kernel we must strip away layer upon layer of defenses. The walnut symbolically is almost an analogy of the world. It has four different layers of Protection:
(1) Dishonesty and self-deception,
(2) closemindedness and blind prejudice,
(3) unwillingness and inertia,
(4) the fog and clouds of habit and history.
All of them have to go before we move forward. As we strive to change, the masks and armor fall away and we reach a clear perception of ourselves. The walnut is a paradigm of suppression, representing all the manifold efforts of dishonesty to prevent us seeing ourselves as we really are. The walnut is bound up with the prime number 17 which is also the value of the Hebrew word for SIN. It describes an arrow shot wide of the mark, and represents the natural world severed from all its spiritual connections. The raw material of our bodies, the tools with which we strive to serve the Spirit of Hashem's will for us.
In the description of a soul surveying its body at the end of a lifetime, searching for assets to salvage from the wreckage of the past, it is written (Song of Songs), "I went down to the grove of walnuts to Look and See..." The Kabbalists saw in the shape of the walnut many interesting things. The Kernel is reminiscent of the brain, with its convolutions and striations. But whereas our brains have two lobes the walnut has four lobes. The universe, according to the Kabbalists has four "lobes". The walnut has been used to imitate symbols from the "Celestial Chariot" of Ezekiel, to the concept of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
III. We add cinnamon to the Charoses. In its natural, stick form it resembles straw, which was so necessary to the manufacture of bricks in ancient times. It is bound up with the prime number seven, whose significance is a well known aspect of Judaism.
IV. The final ingredient is wine, the juice of the grape. (The ethyl alcohol manufactured in the process of fermentation is but a tiny aspect of wine's multifaceted symbolism, and its role in Judaism.) The grape has been chosen to represent the powers of the mind, the capability for thought and faith, prayer and meditation. Wine represents the fulfillment of that promise, the conscious contact with Hashem and the knowledge of His will for us. Wine is a symbol for Prophecy which is the ultimate conscious contact where awareness has been reciprocated.
The symbolism was acquired by the grape as a poetic expression of a mundane phenomenon. The mysterious action (of airborne bacteria) which causes the fermentation of the grape into wine, almost an analogy of the process of human thought. The fermentation action with its vigorous bubbling, its transformation into "spirit" and its spontaneous enhancement, simulates the thought process that occurs in our own mind when ideas ferment, solidify and crystallize.
The Union of Man with Hashem was a state of mind, much sought by the prophets and the school of Jewish Meditation. It was always preceded by joy and gratitude which were prerequisites to the prophetic state. So the grape also came to symbolize joy and gratitude. The only state that is elevated beyond the heights of prophetic communion are those moments when we feel Love as it is written (Song of Songs): "But Your Love is better than wine".