ESTHER AND THE SECOND SEDER

QUESTION:

Is there actually a minhag to dedicate the second Seder to Esther and to the woman of the house because it was on that night that Esther prepared the fatal banquet for the king and Haman? (Asked by Rabbi M. Arthur Oles, San Francisco, California.)

ANSWER:

NONE OF THE classic books of minhagim available to me even mentions such a minhag. For example, the Ta’amey Ha-minhagim, the Ozar Kol Minhagey Yeshurun, and the classic Mateh Moshe have no mention of such a minhag. Of course there well may be such a custom somewhere, especially nowadays, when the Seder is being extended in various ways as a means of honoring different groups in our recent history, as, for example, an extra matzo to recall the heroism of the Warsaw ghetto and the third Seder for some similar purpose. So if some modern writer thought up this minhag that you mentioned, it would not be surprising.

Yet as a matter of actual tradition, if there is such a minhag somewhere (of which I have been unable to find any specific notice), or if someone started it, there does exist a large amount of material in the traditional literature that might amply justify it.

In the first place, it seems clear that many of the important events involving the rescue of the Jews on Purim began to occur on Passover of the preceding year. The record of the official decree to slaughter the Jews of Persia is mentioned in Esther 3:12 as follows: “And the scribes of the king read on the first month, on the thirteenth day of the month [i.e., Erev Pesach].” This dating of the murderous decree left its mark in the minhagim observed in the preparation for Passover. The Sefer Hamatamim (p. 26b, item # 15) states that when we make the formal search for leaven before the Passover (b’dikas chometz), we place around the house ten pieces of leaven to be found in the search. Why ten? Because the scribes mentioned in the verse were actually the ten sons of Haman; and as a symbol of their ultimate removal, we have ten pieces of leaven which we remove in preparation for the Passover.

More directly, when Esther called for a fast of three days (Esther 4:17), it is understood that these three days were the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth of Nisan. See Rashi to the reference in Megilla 15a, who also explains the next verse in the Book of Esther, “And Mordecai passed” (va -ya-avor Mordecai), as meaning “And Mordecai transgressed,” i.e., he transgressed the Halacha by having a fast day on the first day of Pesach. This is amplified in the Midrash to Esther, verse 4:16, in which Mordecai complains to Esther that the three-day fast she is proclaiming for the Jews to observe will include the first day of Pesach. To which complaint by Mordecai she rejoined: “If there will be no Jews left, what becomes of Pesach?”

Furthermore, Esther is praised in many ways as being especially meticulous in observing the law, and among these various praises of her as an observant Jewess, it is said that she actually observed the ritual of cleaning out the chometz from the house (biyur chometz). See Koheles Rabba to the verse in Ecclesiastes 8:5: “He who observes a commandment will not know any evil thing.” To which the Midrash there says: “This verse refers to Esther, who engaged in the mitzvah of removing the chometz. ”

Perhaps the closest justification for the possible custom that you mention is the statement in the Pirke Rabbi Eliezer (chap. 50) that the banquet which Esther arranged for the king and Haman actually occurred on the sixteenth of Nisan, the day before the second Seder. This is the source of the statement to which you have referred.

Therefore, while I cannot find in any source among the minhagim that the second Seder is (or should be) dedicated to Esther, nevertheless, if such a custom does exist somewhere, i.e., if it is not merely a modern concoction, it has plenty of classical justification, as mentioned above.