One of the main types of produce that is infested is lettuce. It doesn't seem they used to eat lettuce during their meals (hence the historical need for karpas to patur the marror... which by the way is why my husband says to eat a kzayis of karpas, make a borei nefashos, and since lettuce these days is an integral part of meals - as per my teenage daughters - it doesn't need to be patured, and this then solves other issues involved with paturing maror). So workers were probably not munching on lettuce, leafy veggies, and artichokes anyways. ('man est gruz du in america').... And flour and grain is not so tasty either. Nice juicy dates (easy to check when holding up to light), grapes (which didn't used to have bugs eons ago in my childhood), pomegranates, were probably good workers' choices, and buggless.
Thanks for this! You're certainly correct that most fruits wouldn't present much of a problem either way.
However, I haven't seen any evidence that they didn't eat leafy vegetables in the Gemara's time. But I'm definitely not sure about the proof from the Seder. The Gemara (Pesachim 115a) suggests that the default for most people was to eat chazeres (lettuce) for karpas and that Rav Acha b'rai d'Rabba broke with the normal menu simply to avoid the machlokes:
רב אחא בריה דרבא מהדר אשאר ירקות לאפוקי נפשיה מפלוגתא
But in any case, the Torah's heter for workers applies in all generations and should, in theory at least, be broadly applicable whatever our diets might be.
Thanks for your answer. I don't understand though what the issue of karpas has to do with the issue of marror/salad being a mazon. About the lettuce, the poskim say that because it's not considered a mazon it would need a bracha, but perhaps not because it's integral to seder, therefore we need karpas to patur. They would make a bracha on salad in the middle of the seuda because it's not a mazon. Even the mishna brura in hilchos brachos says to make bracha on lettuce during seuda because it's not a mazon to fill up...etc. Nowadays there seems to be a problem because people tahke eat salad to fill up...
About the chazeres for karpas, the machlokes is what to do when there is only one vegetable for karpas and marror. But maybe you can explain this whole thing to me because I don't understand something. Both man de'amars have obvious disadvantages to them (bracha when ikar mitzva later, seems like fooling...) why is that not reason enough for Rav Acha to say to get another vegetable, why bring up avoiding machlokes...
I'm not familiar enough with the poskim on this inyan to have an opinion about the modern status of lettuce בתוך הסעודה. But it's an interesting topic I might explore later. However, Tosafos in Pesachim (והדר אכיל חסא בלא ברכה) clearly hold that chazeres is considered פרפרת הפת and doesn't require its own beracha. And the Rashbam holds that you *would* need to make בורא פרי האדמה on chazeres because it's coming for a separate mitzva and is therefore not included in the סעודה.
I think that the shita that you'd make על אכילת מרור on karpas assumes that the first eating would in fact be the real kiyum hamitzva and the one that comes later is just לרווחה דמילתא.
One of the main types of produce that is infested is lettuce. It doesn't seem they used to eat lettuce during their meals (hence the historical need for karpas to patur the marror... which by the way is why my husband says to eat a kzayis of karpas, make a borei nefashos, and since lettuce these days is an integral part of meals - as per my teenage daughters - it doesn't need to be patured, and this then solves other issues involved with paturing maror). So workers were probably not munching on lettuce, leafy veggies, and artichokes anyways. ('man est gruz du in america').... And flour and grain is not so tasty either. Nice juicy dates (easy to check when holding up to light), grapes (which didn't used to have bugs eons ago in my childhood), pomegranates, were probably good workers' choices, and buggless.
Thanks for this! You're certainly correct that most fruits wouldn't present much of a problem either way.
However, I haven't seen any evidence that they didn't eat leafy vegetables in the Gemara's time. But I'm definitely not sure about the proof from the Seder. The Gemara (Pesachim 115a) suggests that the default for most people was to eat chazeres (lettuce) for karpas and that Rav Acha b'rai d'Rabba broke with the normal menu simply to avoid the machlokes:
רב אחא בריה דרבא מהדר אשאר ירקות לאפוקי נפשיה מפלוגתא
But in any case, the Torah's heter for workers applies in all generations and should, in theory at least, be broadly applicable whatever our diets might be.
Thanks for your answer. I don't understand though what the issue of karpas has to do with the issue of marror/salad being a mazon. About the lettuce, the poskim say that because it's not considered a mazon it would need a bracha, but perhaps not because it's integral to seder, therefore we need karpas to patur. They would make a bracha on salad in the middle of the seuda because it's not a mazon. Even the mishna brura in hilchos brachos says to make bracha on lettuce during seuda because it's not a mazon to fill up...etc. Nowadays there seems to be a problem because people tahke eat salad to fill up...
About the chazeres for karpas, the machlokes is what to do when there is only one vegetable for karpas and marror. But maybe you can explain this whole thing to me because I don't understand something. Both man de'amars have obvious disadvantages to them (bracha when ikar mitzva later, seems like fooling...) why is that not reason enough for Rav Acha to say to get another vegetable, why bring up avoiding machlokes...
I'm not familiar enough with the poskim on this inyan to have an opinion about the modern status of lettuce בתוך הסעודה. But it's an interesting topic I might explore later. However, Tosafos in Pesachim (והדר אכיל חסא בלא ברכה) clearly hold that chazeres is considered פרפרת הפת and doesn't require its own beracha. And the Rashbam holds that you *would* need to make בורא פרי האדמה on chazeres because it's coming for a separate mitzva and is therefore not included in the סעודה.
I think that the shita that you'd make על אכילת מרור on karpas assumes that the first eating would in fact be the real kiyum hamitzva and the one that comes later is just לרווחה דמילתא.
Very interesting. I'll have to think about that.