Eruv Tavshilin & Bread in the Pesach Haggadah
Post date: Sep 18, 2017 8:00:27 AM
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year is coming up soon (starting Wednesday 20th September at night) and will last for two days (Thursday & Friday). Immediately following these two days High Holiday days comes the Shabbat. On Festivals we are prohibited from doing work but lighting fire in order to prepare food is permitted (in contrast to Shabbat on which this too is prohibited). However, lighting fire on Festival days is only permitted to prepare food for that same say, not for days following it. Nevertheless, if the Festival falls on a Friday preventing us from preparing food for the Shabbat, we are allowed to prepare whatever is needed for the Shabbat meal on condition that a special prayer called Eruv Tavshilin (literally "mingling of the cooked foods") is said before the beginning of the Festival.
This means that orthodox Jews this Wednesday afternoon will say the Eruv Tavshilin prayer and will ceremonially place aside a piece of bread and some cooked food (such as fish, meat or an egg) to be eaten on the Shabbat. They have thus started preparing the Shabbat meal BEFORE the Festival and are allowed to continue doing so during it. The text and instructions for the Eruv are printed in all prayerbooks with or without their translation.
If the first two days of Pesach (outside Israel) fall on Thursday and Friday, we also do the Eruv Tavshilin. Many Haggadot, therefore, include the text and instructions for the Eruv in the introductory prayers for Pesach, immediately after the prayers said during the final removal of all breadcrumbs from the house. It is ironic to see how Haggadah editors and translators sometimes blindly copy texts without giving it any thought. Because after the removal of all bread from the house and the strict prohibition to have any bread in our homes or eat any bread, it is quite ludicrous to instruct the Haggadah users to take "some cooked food, as meat, fish, or eggs, with a loaf of bread" to place aside during first days of Pesach and eat on Shabbat. But this is exactly what many Haggadot prescribe instead of replacing the "loaf of bread" with "piece of Matzah".
The attached illustration (with "Erub Tabshilin") comes from a 1957 Haggadah of the "Mesivta Yeshivah Rabbi Chaim Berlin", a highly respected and orthodox Yeshivah (Talmudic Academy) in New York. The Yiddish title page states that this Haggadah is intended for "אלע אידען וועלכע אינטערעסירען זיך אין דעם אידישען חנוך" (Alle Jiden welchen interessieren zich in dem Yidische Chniuch, - All Jews who are interested in Jewish education). I am not sure eating bread on Pesach would fall under the intended education. This is just one example of the many English and Hebrew Haggadot that make this mistake.
May this coming year bring happiness and health to all readers and may any mistakes we have made last year be forgiven and not inscribed in any book for future generations to see. Shana Tova.