Every Jewish schoolboy knows that after reciting Kiddush at the Passover Seder (Kadesh), the next steps involve washing hands (Urchatz), and then dipping a vegetable and eating it (Karpas). The source for that custom of dipping a vegetable and eating it before the formal meal on Passover Night is the Mishnah (Pesachim 10:3), which refers to a first dipping as something distinct from the second dipping involving the marror. In his commentary there, Rashi (to Pesachim 114a) actually explains that the first dipping is done with yerakot — the plural form of yerek. That term refers to any generic “vegetable,” yet we colloquially call the vegetable used in the first dipping karpas. In this essay, we explore the words yerek and karpas, showing how these two terms are not actually synonyms, because yerek means “vegetable,” while karpas actually means something more specific.

The word yerek and its close cognate yarak appear altogether eleven times in the Bible (Gen. 1:30, 9:3, Num. 22:4, Deut. 11:10, I Kgs. 21:2, II Kgs. 19:26, Isa. 15:6, 37:27, Ps. 37:2, and Prov. 15:17). Various inflections of yerek also appear countless times in the Mishnah. For example, when the Mishnah (Pesachim 10:4) refers to the first dipping in the Four Questions (Mah Nishtanah), it calls the foodstuff dipped “other yerakot” (as opposed to marror, which is a specific subset of yerakot). Another famous Mishnah (Brachot 6:1) rules that one recites the blessing Borei Pri HaAdamah before eating vegetables.

The early Hebrew lexicographers (i.e., Menachem Ibn Saruk, Yonah Ibn Janach, and Radak) trace the word yerek to the triliteral root YOD-REISH-KUF. As Ibn Saruk explains it, this particular root gives way to three related sets of words: “vegetable,” “greenish gem” (emerald?), and “green” (the color). Ibn Janach and Radak add that it also gives way to the verb for “spitting” and the noun for “spittle,” but Ibn Saruk sees those words as derived from the separate biliteral root REISH-KUF.

Rabbi Avraham Bedersi in Chotam Tochnit writes that vegetables are called yerakot because they are typically green (yarok). Technically speaking, though, in Rabbinic Hebrew, the term yarok can refer to an array of colors ranging from yellow to green to blue (see Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi’s HaMadrich HaMaspik, Teshuvos Maharam M’Rothenberg Prague ed. §631, and Beiur HaGra to Tikkun HaZohar Tikkun #21).

Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim of Breslau (1740–1814) actually traces yarok itself to the biliteral root REISH-KUF. He identifies the core meaning of that root as “emptying/depleting.” To explain how yerek relates to that core meaning, Rabbi Pappenheim delves into botany to describe how plants are comprised of both solid and liquid components. The solid components form the structural elements of the plant such as roots, stems, branches, and leaves, while the liquid components contribute to its sap, flavor, scent, and overall quality. The remaining liquid parts inside the plant contribute to taste and scent, while those externally expelled contribute to the plant’s appearance and color. Accordingly, he attributes the green appearance of live plants to the expulsion of those inner liquids, thus accounting for the connection between the green coloration and the “emptying” out of those liquids. In a borrowed sense, the term yarok can also refer to the coloration of less fresh plants that turn yellowish upon........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)