Karpas () is one of the traditional rituals in the

Passover Seder The Passover Seder is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the eve of the 15th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar (i.e., at the start of the 15th; a Hebrew d ...

. It refers to the vegetable, usually

parsley Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum''), is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to Greece, Morocco and the former Yugoslavia. It has been introduced and naturalisation (biology), naturalized in Eur ...

celery Celery (''Apium graveolens'' Dulce Group or ''Apium graveolens'' var. ''dulce'') is a cultivated plant belonging to the species ''Apium graveolens'' in the family Apiaceae that has been used as a vegetable since ancient times. The original wild ...

, that is dipped in liquid and eaten. The karpas is traditionally placed on the seder plate on the left side, below the roasted egg. The word ''karpas'' is the original Hebrew word for "celery", borrowed from Persian ''karafs'' (Persian: کرفس) meaning celery. The word was originally pronounced ''karafs''; the standard pronunciation "karpas" may be a corruption which developed due to a misvocalization along the lines of a similar word found in Esther 1:6 which means cotton. One reason given for dipping a vegetable into a liquid is to provoke children to ask about it, as per the theme of the Seder night that the story is to be recounted by way of question and answer. Dipping a vegetable prior to the main meal is not usually done at other occasions, and thus arouses the curiosity of the children. There is a second ceremonial dipping later in the Seder, when

maror ''Maror'' ( ''mārōr'') are the bitter herbs eaten at the Passover Seder in keeping with the biblical commandment "with bitter herbs they shall eat it." ( Exodus 12:8). The Maror is one of the symbolic foods placed on the Passover Seder pla ...

is dipped into the charoset. Hence one of the Four Questions, traditionally sung by the youngest at the Seder table, asks why "on all other nights we do not dip vegetables even once, on this night, we dip twice." Some have explained the dipping of the Karpas into salt water to symbolize

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

's tunic being dipped into blood by his brothers. Karpas is therefore done at the beginning of the seder, just as Joseph's tunic being dipped into blood began the Israelite descent to Egypt. The second dipping some say reminds us of the dipping of hyssop into lambs blood and painted on the doorposts so the angel of death would pass over that house.

References

External links

''Why Does the Seder Begin with Karpas?'' By Gilad J. Gevaryahu & Michael Wise
(PDF)

* Rabbi

Eliezer Melamed Eliezer Melamed (; born 28 June 1961) is an Israeli religious-Zionist rabbi, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Bracha, the rabbi of the settlement Har Bracha, and the author of '' Peninei Halakha'', a series of '' Halakhic'' works. Biography ...

, Peninei Halakha Laws Of Pesach, pp. 277–80
Karpas
{{Passover Footer Passover foods Passover seder Jewish ceremonial food and drink fr:Karpass