Take at least one ounce of the bitter herbs. Dip it in the charoset, then shake the latter off.

This bitter herb allows us to taste the bitterness of slavery. Today, most Jews use horseradish as maror. Originally, though, maror was probably a bitter lettuce, such as romaine, or a root, such as chicory. Like life in Egypt, these lettuces and roots taste sweet when one first bites into them, but then become bitter as one eats more. We dip maror into charoset in order to associate the bitterness of slavery with the work that caused so much of this bitterness.

Scholars inform us that bitter herbs were eaten at the Spring festival in ancient times. The sharpness of the taste awakened the senses and made the people feel at one with nature’s revival.Maror is the moment of quantity turning into quality, when the accumulated horrors of capitalism crystalize and the working class awakens to the need for a new reality, for socialism.

As we bite into the maror let the bitterness of our toil under capitalism transform into a toil for the liberation of the working class from the chains of capitalism.

Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai, E-lo-hey-nu Me-lech ha-o-lam, A-sher ki-d’-sha-nu b’-mitz-vo-tav, v’-tzi-va-nu Al a-chilat ma-ror.

Blessed are you, Power of the universe, who makes us holy through your commandments, and commands us to eat Maror.

Sources

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Passover/The_Seder/Seder_Plate_and_Table.shtml

http://www.eszter.com/Haggadah.pdf


haggadah Section: Maror