# 941 Pass the Karpass

My

family uses raw parsley for karpas. Is the brachah on raw parsley

still adama today or perhaps today it is not

eaten

raw and the bracha is shehakol, and I should use something else for

karpas? (I know pesach is far away, but if I wait until the last

minute I’ll forget to ask)

thank youA. Although any food that

you recite the Ha’adamah blessing on it and is not suitable for

maror, is in principle fit for karpas use, the Arizal (Shaar

Hakavonos – Pesach, drush 6) exhorts the use of the vegetable named

Karpas, to maintain the importance and meaning of the minhagim

instituted by our sages. (see also Kaf Hachaim 473: 49, Haggada

Moadim Uzmanim p. 46.)

Rashi

(Sukkah

39b) says that Karpas could be translated as cress (Artscroll

translation) which is similar to parsley. However, he heard (from his

rabbis) that Karpas is translated as Apio. Rashi seems to prefer the

first interpretation. Yerushalmi (Shviis 9:1) and many Poskim (Mogen

Avrohom 473: 4 et. al.) also mention the name “petrosilia,”

(Petrishke or petrushil in Yidish) which is parsley (perejil in

Spanish)

However, Chasam Sofer 132

quoting his teacher Rabbi Nosson Adler asserts that the Apio

vegetable quoted by Rashi, is celery (corresponds to the modern

Spanish translation.) An anecdote relates that the Chasam Sofer in

year 5545 spent an early Pesach with his Rebbi in Vienna, that year

the rivers and ground were still frozen. He paid an exorbitant price

for some very hard to find greenhouse grown celery leafs. (Moriah.

Shvat 5750: p. 227 – An acronym quoted in his name for Apio is E-l

Poel Yeshuos Ato)

Machazit HaShekel (473:4) in

name of medical books, and Beis Sheorim 213 concur that Karpas is

celery. Halichos Shlomo writes that Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach when

he was younger ate celery and in his later years had cucumber as

Karpas.

Jastrow and modern Hebrew

dictionaries translate Karpas as parsley, some mention also celery

In

regards to the brocho on parsley, Poskim disagree. Halachos of

Brochos (p. 66) maintains that when eaten with other foods, since

parsley is used to enhance them, it does not require its own bracha.

Other Poskim mention Shehakol since it is not usually eaten raw by

itself (see Mogen Avraham ibid.)

Poskim

warn extensively on eating raw parsley as it is usually infested with

small insects. Avnei Yoshfe ( 7:65: 1) addresses the question of what

brocho one recites on Karpas or Maror grown hydroponically

in

greenhouses to keep the produce insect free.

Horav

Shlomo Miller’s Shlit’a opinion is that if indeed the parsley

leafs were thoroughly cleaned, inspected and .found

insect free, one can use them for Karpas and recite Ha’adama

Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a