Someone always shouts, "Go wash your hands, but don't forget to not say a blessing!"

One may wonder, and why not a blessing? According to Issac Klein, "...we are obligated to wash our hands before touching anything that is dipped in liquid (B.Pes.115a; Tur, O.H. 473)" and next we dip our parsley into salt water. But since we are not washing before the meal, the blessing is omitted. The discussion continues as to if all participants are meant to wash, or if just one person needs to. Klein suggests that it may have been an accident in our modern haggadot that made it just the leader to wash his or her hands.

Now we understand why there is no blessing, and yet there is still one question with this curious act that needs to be asked. The Talmud asks. "Why do we wash our hands at this point in the Seder?", and it answers, " Because it is an unusual activity which prompts the children to ask questions." Yet, in our modern lives, many of us do not ritually wash our hands before eating. Perhaps it is a time for us to consider that this seder is about making us all like children where we are all expected to drop our inhabitations and ask the question. Tonight, we invite you to make yourself vulnerable, do something that is out of ordinary, try on something new, and ask a question, ponder a response and of course enjoy your new-found freedom from inhibitions.


haggadah Section: Urchatz
Source: Isaac Klein, A Guide to Jewish Religious Pratice