LETTUCE

LETTUCE (Heb. חֲזֶרֶת, ḥazeret or חַסָּה, ḥssah), vegetable. Lettuce is not mentioned in the Bible. According to rabbinic tradition, however, it is included in the term merorim ("bitter herbs," Ex. 12:8) which are commanded to be eaten on the night of the Passover seder (see maror ). According to the Mishnah (Pes. 2:6) this obligation can be discharged with five species of vegetable, the first of which is חֲזֶרֶת, which the Gemara explains to be ḥassah (Pes. 39a). Lettuce when young has soft leaves and a sweet taste, but if left in the field until it begins to flower its leaves harden and become bitter. For this reason the rabbis stated that it is ideal as maror: "just as lettuce is first sweet and then bitter, so was the behavior of the Egyptians to our ancestors" (TJ, Pes. 2:5, 29c), or "because the lettuce is first soft and finally hard" (Pes. 39a). Lettuce was a popular vegetable. It is a winter crop which does not usually grow in summer, but people of wealth endeavored to obtain it out of season too. Thus it is related of antoninus and R. Judah ha-Nasi that their tables "did not lack lettuce even in summer" (Ber. 57b). Some think that the lettuce referred to is the wild variety Lactuca scariola out of which the cultivated "sweet" lettuce developed. Against this it should be noted that the growing of the cultivated variety is very ancient, it being depicted already in ancient Egyptian paintings, from which it seems that they grew the long-leaved lettuce, Lactuca sativa, var. longifolia, and apparently this variety was also grown in Israel in ancient times. The aforementioned wild variety, which is called the "compass lettuce" because its leaves point north and south, is found in all districts of Israel, particularly near refuse. The Mishnah (Kil. 1:2) calls it hazeret gallim, i.e., lettuce of the rubbish heaps, and decided that it is of the same species as the cultivated lettuce. The Samaritans have the custom of eating this wild lettuce with their Passover sacrifice. Among Jews of European origin the common custom is to eat as maror on the night of the seder horseradish, Armocaria rusticana, which they identify with the ḥazeret or tamkha mentioned as a bitter herb (Pes. 2:6), but this vegetable is sharp and not "bitter," nor was it grown in Ereẓ Israel in ancient times. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Loew, Flora, 1 (1928), 424–39; H.N. and A.L. Moldenke, Plants of the Bible (1952), 6, 34, 74f., 140; J. Feliks, Kilei Zera'im ve-Harkavah (1967), 56–58; idem, Olam ha-ẓome'aḥ ha-Mikra'i (19682, 194–6. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Feliks, Ha-Ẓome'aḥ, 58. (Jehuda Feliks)