Let us start at the very beginning of the Seder. After we raise the first cup of wine and recite Kiddush, we wash our hands without a blessing before eating a vegetable, usually parsley, and we make the blessing to God "Creator of the fruit of the earth.” The usual explanation for this is that karpas is the Greek word for vegetation, and Greco-Roman meals would generally begin with the vegetable hors-d'oeuvre together with a ‘dip.' The seder is a reclining meal reminiscent of a Graeco-Roman feast and so we begin the seder evening with this vegetable hors-d'oeuvre /dip. For us, the vegetable is also a symbol of spring, Passover is called the Festival of the Spring – and the dip is generally salt water reminiscent of the tears of the Hebrew slaves.
In conjunction with its exhibition, “Frank Stella: Had Gadya, Illustrations after El Lissitzky,” the Skirball Museum is offering a multi-media virtual presentation on Had Gadya by Cantor Ella Gladstone Martin.