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The Surprising Origins of the Passover Seder
An image from “Family at the Seder,” from the 1935 Haggadah by artist Arthur Szyk (b. 1894, Lodz, Poland—d. 1951, New Canaan, CT). Photo: Courtesy of Irvin Ungar
In his popular book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, the Israeli writer Yuval Noah Harari contrasts the universality of religions such as Christianity and Islam with the particularism of Judaism.
To him, Judaism is an insular religion, a “tribal creed … focused on the fate of one small nation and one tiny land …”
Harari is not the only one to use the term particularism when referring to Judaism and the Jewish experience. Yet are we so sure of the particulars when speaking of Jewish particularism?
Passover will be here soon, and in the context of understanding the origins of the Seder and the Haggadah, I was recently surprised to learn that one of the most widely celebrated events in the Jewish calendar, the Passover Seder, is, in part, a ritual inspired by another culture.
The purpose of the Passover Seder is the retelling of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt; based on the Biblical verse (Exodus 13:8) “And you shall explain to your child on that day, ‘it is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt.’”
But the central focus of the Haggadah is a strange night-long meeting of five prominent rabbis, tanaim (early contributors to the Mishnah), in the coastal town of B’nei Brak in the Land of Israel. They are discussing the exodus from Egypt, an event that took place well over a millennium earlier. What would have been the purpose of the meeting? Neither family members nor students were present, so it was not a Seder as we know it.
Some suggest that the meeting of the sages in B’nei Brak had something to do with the Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135 CE), noting that it took place at the home of Rabbi Akiva, the spiritual head of the revolt. However, some of the rabbis were no longer alive at that time, so the dateline does not work.
It turns out there was another Jewish revolt against the Romans between the Bar Kochba Revolt, and the earlier revolt that ended at Masada in 73CE. (Three Jewish-Roman wars in only 65 years!)
This was the Kitos Revolt (115-117 CE), named after Quietus, the Roman commander who subdued it. It involved large uprisings in the Jewish diaspora: Cyrenaica (eastern Libya), Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia (Babylon). But some of the fighting took place in Judea, in the town of Lydda. Could the meeting of the five Jewish sages in B’nei Brak have occurred during the lead up to the Kitos War, or during it? It would have taken place a short distance from Lydda, so the need for secrecy and vigilance might explain the odd nature of the meeting portrayed in the Haggadah.
Alternatively, Israeli artist and writer Mordechai Beck suggests that the meeting in B’nei Brak is one of good friends, and the lesson the rabbis teach us in the Haggadah is one of eternal friendship, a friendship that has the power to take us, the readers, annually out of Egypt.
Israeli scholar Lee I. Levine’s engrossing book Judaism and Hellenism in Antiquity makes it clear that Beck’s emphasis on the friendship of the rabbis is the better analysis, but in a somewhat different context.
Levine notes that the meeting of the five rabbis in B’nai Brak resembles a Greco-Roman symposium. What was a symposium? A symposium was a convivial meeting of friends over dinner to discuss a point of philosophy. It was an all night affair, men only, and it included drinking wine and eating a variety of foods, including sweet and savory items such as a mixture of nuts and apples steeped in wine, all while reclining in a leisurely fashion.
Aside from the fact that the rabbis were focused on a historical event, the exodus from Egypt, the principal difference from a typical symposium of the day to today’s Seder, has to do with the after dinner activities, described euphemistically as the dessert (affikomen, derived from Greek). These often included drinking and bawdy behavior and the rabbis in their wisdom adopted the more family-friendly tradition of the middle matzah, eaten at the end of the Seder, as the affikomen.
This perspective on the origin of the Passover Seder highlights the point that all religions and cultures interact and influence one another, and terms like universalism and particularism can be misleading. Levine concludes that the Jewish people have survived through the centuries because they were able to maintain their own ways while at the same time being open to change. Or, as the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (z”l) puts it,“Every one of us is a mix of the universal and the particular. Life is our commonalities plus our differences. If we had nothing in common, we couldn’t communicate. If we had everything in common, we’d have nothing to say.”
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
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The Forward publishes exclusive interview with Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil
New York — April 7, 2026 — Today, the Forward, the nation’s leading Jewish news organization, published an exclusive, in-depth interview with Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University protest leader whose arrest during last year’s campus demonstrations thrust him into the national spotlight.
In a candid and wide-ranging conversation with Arno Rosenfeld, an enterprise reporter and author of the Forward’s Antisemitism Decoded newsletter, Khalil critiqued Hamas and said it had come to power through collaboration with Israel, explained his “nuanced” view of Zionism and detailed his vision for a “free Palestine” that includes the Jewish citizens of Israel.
“I was glad to have the opportunity to drill down on specifics that have been widely speculated upon but not addressed in Khalil’s previous interviews,” said Rosenfeld. “He wanted to speak directly to a major Jewish audience.”
The interview offers rare insight into one of the most scrutinized figures to emerge from the campus protest movement, drawing on original reporting, Khalil’s past public statements, and interviews with current and former Columbia students.
The post The Forward publishes exclusive interview with Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil appeared first on The Forward.
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US Hits Military Targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, Vance Says No Change to Strategy
US Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles, California, US, June 20, 2025. Phone: REUTERS/Daniel Cole
US strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island do not represent a change in American strategy, US Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday as a US official separately told Reuters the additional strikes on military targets did not impact oil infrastructure.
The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, described at least some of the strikes as targeting sites that had been previously struck before and said the attack occurred in the early morning hours of Tuesday.
Vance, speaking separately in Budapest, said the strikes were not a change in US strategy, with the Trump administration confident that it can get a response from Iran by 8 pm (0001 Wednesday GMT) in negotiations to end the conflict. US President Donald Trump is demanding Iran forswear nuclear weapons and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil transit waterway.
“We were going to strike some military targets on Kharg Island, and I believe we have done so,” Vance said.
“We’re not going to strike energy and infrastructure targets until the Iranians either make a proposal that we can get behind or don’t make a proposal,” he added. “I don’t think the news in Kharg Island … represents a change in strategy, or represents any change from the President of the United States.”
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French Nationals Leave Iran After Three and a Half Years Amid Softer France Tone on War
A woman walks past posters with the portraits of Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, two French citizens held in Iran, on the day of support rallies to mark their three-year detention and to demand their release, in front of the National Assembly in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. The slogan reads “Freedom for Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris.” Photo: REUTERS/Abdul Saboor
Two French nationals were heading home on Tuesday after Iran allowed them to leave the country following three and a half years in detention, a surprise move that came as Paris sought to distance itself from the war in the region.
Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris had been confined to France‘s embassy in Tehran since November, after being held since 2022 in the notorious Evin prison on spying charges that France has said were unfounded.
“This is a relief for all of us and obviously for their families,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X. “Thank you to the Omani authorities for their mediation efforts.”
Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry responded to requests for comment on what had been agreed between the two sides to ensure their release.
Iran‘s official news agency IRNA said the couple were freed following an understanding under which France would in turn release Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian student living in the French city of Lyon, and withdraw a complaint against Iran at the International Court of Justice.
However, both assertions were unclear. Esfandiari, who was convicted at the end of February for glorifying terrorism in social media posts, was released after serving almost a year in prison but has appealed the conviction.
It was not clear whether she had left the country, as ordered by the February ruling. France dropped the ICJ complaint last September.
Iran‘s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi spoke with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot on Sunday, confirming the pair’s imminent release.
Macron has criticized US President Donald Trump’s approach to the US-Israeli war on Iran and said France would only help restore freedom of navigation to the Strait of Hormuz once there is a ceasefire and after consultations with Tehran.
France last week refused Israel permission to transfer weapons through French airspace for the war and has led efforts to water down a draft UN Security Council resolution that could have opened the door to forceful action in the strait.
A French official briefing reporters after the release denied that France had a softer position towards Iran and said Paris had warned the Iranians about the safety of their citizens given the escalation in the war.
“I think the Iranians rightly considered that if anything happened to our compatriots, the reactions here would have been extremely catastrophic,” the official said, declining to comment on the details of the negotiation.
French officials have also refused to comment on why a container ship belonging to French shipping group CMA CGM was able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a sign that Iran may not consider France to be a hostile nation.