In some listings of the 613 commandments, such as the Minchat Chinuch, the biblical obligation to consume maror is included within the commandment to consume the meat of the sacrificial Paschal offering. Ever since the Paschal offering ceased to exist with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, the obligation to consume maror on the first night of Passover has been rabbinical in nature. The only two biblical reference to the maror is the verse quoted above in which it is mentioned in reference to the offering, and in Numbers 9:11 where "They are to eat the lamb, together with the unleavened bread and bitter herbs". This is in contradistinction to the obligation to consume matzo on the first night of Passover, which remains a biblical commandment even in the absence of the Paschal Lamb, because there are other biblical verses that mention matzo as a standalone obligation The word derives from the Hebrew word mar, and thus may be related to the English word myrrh.
Symbolism
According to the Haggadah, the traditional text which is recited at the Seder and which defines the Seder's form and customs, the maror symbolizes the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. The following verse from the Torah underscores that symbolism: "And they embittered their lives with hard labor, with mortar and with bricks and with all manner of labor in the field; any labor that they made them do was with hard labor".
Use at the Seder
Maror is one of the foods placed on the Passover Seder Plate and there is a rabbinical requirement to eat maror at the Seder. Chazeret is used for the requirement called korech, in which the maror is eaten together with matzo. There are various customs about the kinds of maror placed at each location. During the Seder, each participant recites a specific blessing over the maror and eats it. It is first dipped into the charoset—a brown, pebbly mixture which symbolizes the mortar with which the Israelites bound bricks for the Egyptians. The excess charoset is then shaken off and the maror is eaten. The halakha prescribes the minimum amount of maror that should be eaten to fulfill the mitzvah and the amount of time in which it should be consumed. To fulfill the obligation, the flavor of the maror must be unadulterated by cooking or preservatives, such as being soaked in vinegar.
Types of maror
The Mishnah specifies five types of bitter herbs eaten on the night of Passover: ḥazzeret, ʿuleshīn, temakha, ḥarḥavina, and maror. The most common vegetables used as bitter herbs are horseradish and romaine lettuce.
Hazzeret
Hazzeret is undoubtedly domestic lettuce, and the word is cognate to other near-eastern terms for lettuce. While in the past, domestic lettuce was bitter, modern varieties are only slightly bitter or not at all, such as iceberg lettuce and romaine lettuce. Heirloom varieties of lettuce are still available to gardeners that are bitter. Romaine lettuce is the most commonly used variety, perhaps because it still preserves a slight bitter taste, though all domestic varieties constitute Hazzereth. Romaine lettuce is not initially bitter, but becomes so later on, which is symbolic of the experience of the Jews in Egypt. The "later" bitterness of lettuce refers to fact that lettuce plants become bitter after they "bolt", a process which occurs naturally when days lengthen or temperatures rise. Wild or prickly lettuce, is listed in Tosefta Pisha as suitable for maror under the name חזרת הגל or חזרת גלין. However, its absence from the approved list in the Mishnah and Talmud indicate that it is not halakhically suitable.
`Ulshin
The second species listed in the Mishnah is `ulshin, which is a plural to refer to both wild and cultivated types of plants in the genus Chicorium. The term is cognate to other near-eastern terms for endives, such as Aramaic עלת and Arabic `alath.
Tamcha
The Talmud Yershalmi identified Hebrew Tamcha with Greek γιγγίδιον, which has been positively identified via the illustration in the Vienna Dioscurides as the carrot Daucus gingidium. Rabbi Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller, in his Tosafot Yom-Tov, identified the Mishna's "temakha" with Yiddish "chreyn". This identification has long been recognized as problematic, as horseradish does not grow natively in Israel and was not available to Jews in the Mishnaic period. Many Jews use horseradish condiment, though the Shulchan Aruch requires that maror be used as is, that is raw, and not cooked or mixed with salt, vinegar, sugar, lemon, or beets.
Harhavina
The identity of harhavina is somewhat disputed.
Maror
The identity of this autohyponym which names the vegetables suitable for the mitzvah was preserved among the Jews of Yemen as the plant Sonchus oleraceus, a type of dandelion native to Israel.
