"And [the Egyptians] embittered the lives [of the children and Israel, forcing them to do] the hardest works, [such as the extraction of] mud and [the manufacture of] bricks..."
Exodus 1:14
POLITICAL FREEFALL
For several decades Jews had a privileged life in Egypt. They lived in a safe and fertile area: Goshen. They did not lack anything. They enjoyed prosperity and good health. This material well-being gave the Jews power and influence. But when a new Pharaoh came to the throne, founding a new dynasty (18th?), he sought to curb the power of the Jews and their demographic growth. First, he imposed excessive taxes on them to impoverish and weaken them. But he was not successful. Pharaoh then proceeded to the second stage of his plan: direct confrontation. The Egyptian ruler officially declared the Jews to be the “enemies of the people” and deprived them of their freedom.
SLAVES OF THE PEOPLE
Visualizing a scenario where Jews are denigrated and brought from the top of society to the bottom in a very fast change of events, is very difficult and it can only become more real – and terrifying – if we think of the Shoah. Elie Wiesel, in his book “Job: Ou Dieu dans la tempête” (French) was one of the first to compare Egyptian captivity with the Holocaust. According to Wiesel the properties and assets of the Jews were confiscated by the government. Men and women were forcibly removed from their homes and taken into labor camps (Pitom , Ramses), where they were forced to work for the government. According to Rabbi Wisser, better known as the Malbim (Russia, 1809 – 1879), many Jews were given to Egyptian citizens as free labor, and as "reparations" for all the money "the Jews made in the good old days.". These are the words of the Malbim: “Jews were taken as permanent slaves, but they no longer worked for the monarch [the government], but for the general population. The Jews were now the slaves of [Pharaoh's] slaves and were forced to do whatever work any Egyptian asked of them."
THE REVENGE OF THE EGYPTIANS
The Torah describes how Egyptian citizens treated their Jewish slaves. "And the Egyptians embittered their lives with hard work." There was something “personal” in this mistreatment of the Jews. Animosity. Resentment. Why? Because the new Pharaoh—a calculating revisionist—changed the narrative of history and demonized Yosef and his descendants. From being the hero who saved Egypt from famine, Yosef was now portrayed as the villain who took advantage of the Egyptian famine to favor his own family. Consequently, and in what appears to be the first manifestation of antisemitism, the Egyptians looked now at the Jews not as saviors of Egypt’s economy but as abusers and si loyal, and this resentment was translated into the most terrible revenge: the "rich" Jews were now the people’s slaves. Free labor for the resentful Egyptians, who got a lot of enjoyment from having the former nobles, under their feet.
WORK, UNTIL YOU DIE
The jobs assigned to the Jews were, of course, the most unhealthy and the riskiest jobs that no one else was willing to do. What do we know about these jobs? Little children draw pictures of Jewish slaves dragging stones, but this is not what the Tora says. The first reference in the Torah is “chomer ulbenim”, mud and bricks: not stones. Incidentally, in the south of Egypt, the stone was used for construction, but in the north, in the Nile delta, where the Jews resided, mud bricks were used. Apparently, of all the hard work that had to be done in Egypt, the most humiliating, exhausting, and deadly was producing these bricks. What did this job consist of? Egyptian bricks were made from two materials: 1. clay or mud, and 2. straw. These mud bricks, also known as "adobe" are used in rural areas almost everywhere on the planet, also on the banks of the Nile (see video at the end of this article) to this day. The Jewish slaves had to extract the mud from the Nile —which was rich in minerals, but harmful to the skin—, transport it, mix it with animal manure, and stir it with feet and hands for four or five days until the brick reaches the point of fermentation. Then, the straw was introduced into that mix to make it strong, solid, and durable. Finally, it was poured into the brick molds. All this work was done in the swamps of the Nile, a river infested with crocodiles, hippos, and mosquitoes, and under the scorching desert sun that burned the skin.
HAROSET AND NATIONAL MEMORY
There are two foods that the Tora instructs us to eat at the Pesach Seder: Matsa, which reminds us that it was God – and not Moses or any other political leader – who delivered us from Egypt. And Maror, a bitter vegetable that reminds us of the taste of slavery. The Sages added two more foods to help us experience slavery and freedom as physically as possible. On one side they introduced the four cups of wine, to celebrate our freedom. And on the other hand, they told us to prepare the Haroset, which according to Maimonides is a Mitsva established by the Rabbis, particularly when combined with the Maror, , to remember slavery. The Haroset is a paste made with fresh fruit, dried fruit, and wine (or vinegar, according to Maimonides) which reminds us of the color and texture of clay. The image of the mud in our hands has been engraved in the collective memory of our people as a national trauma, the symbol of slavery and oppression. And the Haroset reminds us of this at the Seder.
MAIMONIDES RECIPE
There is something else in the Haroset. Following strictly what the Talmud says, Maimonides indicates that “pieces of herbs” (tebalin) must be added to the Haroset, which visually represents the straw. We do not know what those herbs were, but we do know that they are not to flavor the Haroset but to create that special "visual effects". That’s why Maimonides indicates that the herbs should not be ground but cut into small pieces so that it looks like straw (teben) and thus the Haroset looks like "mud with straws" (טיט ותבן). The presence of this ingredient, the herbs or tebalin, was considered essential in the times of the Talmud. The Gemara in Pesachim recounts that the general custom in Jerusalem was that when people arrived at the markets to do their Pesach purchases, the merchants announced: “Come and take [for free] the herbs to fulfill the mitzvah [the precept of Haroset]. ”
THE FUNCTION OF HERBS
Since the effect of these herbs should be visual, there is no limitation on the type of herbs or vegetables that should be used for this purpose. Some rabbis mentioned cinnamon, ginger, or sprigs of hyssop, clarifying that they should not be ground but cut. The Maharil (1366-1427) was the most explicit, saying to cut the herbs into long, fine pieces (מחותכין ארוכין) to give them the appearance of “straws”. Today – for some reason that I have not yet been able to understand – almost all the recipes of the Haroset include spices or aromatic herbs, but no one mentions the herbs that give the Haroset the special visual effect that should awaken the memory of the mud and straw…. For some reason, this very important element has fallen into disuse... and this is when I decided to do my own Haroset....
