The table is set. The door is open. Anyone who wishes may come and join. Everyone is dressed in festive new clothes, ready to begin the holiday meal of the new year.
All that is bad has gone up in flames. Now the heart, the body, and the home are clean, ready for the blessings that spring will bring.
On the table sits a large plate adorned with the symbols of the holiday.
We will entertain the children with gifts and games, so they stay awake. We may be describing the traditional Passover Seder of the Jewish people. But we might just as easily be describing something else entirely: welcome to Nowruz.
Wait, what?
Meet Nowruz, the New Year of the ancient Zoroastrian religion. It takes place on the spring equinox, the day when daylight and darkness are equal. Nowruz marks the triumph of light, the sun, and fire over darkness, reflecting the Zoroastrian belief in an ongoing struggle between good and evil.
This holiday became so deeply rooted in Persian culture that even after the rise of Islam in Iran, it persevered. Not everyone approved, certainly not the ayatollahs, but the tradition was too deeply embedded among the people. It spread across much of the former Persian Empire and into other regions where Persian cultural influence made an impact.
To this day, Nowruz is celebrated in Iran and beyond as both a national New Year and a popular spring festival, marked by holidays, festivities, and joy.
For some 1,200 years, Jewish communities lived under Persian rule, and they were not untouched by this culture. Jewish sages, not only in Persia but also in Babylonia, were well acquainted with Nowruz. The holiday is mentioned in both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. It is unclear to what extent Jews themselves observed it over the centuries, but they certainly knew it well. As Nowruz eventually became a national rather than strictly religious festival, Jews could encounter, and even mark the holiday, without concern.
We may not know exactly how ancient Persians originally celebrated Nowruz, but the customs practiced from the Islamic period to the present are well documented.
And those customs bear a striking resemblance to our own Passover traditions.
We’ll get to that in a moment, but let’s just stress – there’s no need for alarm. It makes perfect sense that Jews both influenced and were influenced by the cultures in which they lived. In fact, it’s almost inevitable. And once these customs became deeply rooted in Persian culture, their path into Jewish communities, both in the Diaspora and in the Land of Israel, was a short one.
Shall we take a look?
In her Hebrew book Mah Nishtanah Be’emet? (“How Is This Different, Really?”), Dr. Esther Shkalim outlines, one by one, the parallels between Jewish Passover customs and those of Nowruz. Here we’ll go through a few of our favorite examples:
Cleaning the Home, and the Body
In Persian, this is called Khāne-takānī, literally, “shaking the house.” It is the Iranian version of spring cleaning ahead of the New Year. According to Zoroastrian belief, evil resides in dirt and impurity; cleaning is therefore seen as a victory of good over evil. Even the smallest cracks and hidden corners must be thoroughly cleaned.
Burning the Chametz
This Persian pre-holiday custom is an interesting one: a large bonfire is lit, people jump over it, and recite, “My yellow shall become yours, and your red shall become mine.” In other words, warmth and vitality, health and good fortune, are carried into the new year, while sickness and pallor, the misfortunes of the past year, are left behind.
It is worth noting that among Jews of the Caucasus, there was known to be a custom of jumping over bonfires while reciting chants to ward off the evil eye. Disposing of chametz (unleavened bread) by use of fire (after all, there are many other ways one could dispose of it) is seen in Jewish tradition as much more than just a practical act. It reflects a deeper idea: the elimination of chametz as the burning away of the previous year’s evils, and a symbolic promise of a better year to come.
A Set Table, and a Seder Plate
At the start of Nowruz, the extended family gathers around a large table, dressed in clean, festive clothes, in a brightly decorated room.
According to Persian legend, the entire world rests on one of the horns of a mythical bull, which itself stands upon a fish in the sea. At the precise moment of the equinox, the bull shifts the world from one horn to the other, and the earth trembles.
How can this subtle movement be detected?
By carefully watching a hard-boiled egg placed on a mirror, or a green leaf floating in a bowl of water. If we look closely enough, we might just catch it moving. A hard-boiled egg, greens in water… sound familiar? And have a look at the Iranian equivalent of the Seder plate. Yes, they have one too! The Nowruz table features a variety of symbolic items, including eggs, flowers, greens, sprouted legumes, sweets, and fruits.
A Charoset-Like Dish
Nowruz, too, has its own version of charoset, (a Jewish Passover dish consisting of finely chopped nuts and fruit). Zoroastrians prepare a dish made of crushed wheat, corn, and a bit of meat, known as harissa (not to be confused with the Tunisian chili pepper paste with a similar name). In modern Iran we find a similar dish made from ground wheat with walnuts and almonds, called samanu.
This dish is believed to bring fertility, prosperity, and sweetness in the coming year. Even the names harisa and charoset sound strikingly similar.
An Open Door
And what about opening the door so that “all who are hungry may come and eat”, as we read in the Haggadah?
During Nowruz, it is customary to both host and visit freely, without prior invitation. Social boundaries are set aside, and people move from house to house, often with doors left open to signal that all are welcome. In many Eastern Jewish communities (unlike Ashkenazi communities, where Passover was often marked by fear of blood libels), it was likewise customary to keep the door open throughout the Seder, echoing practices already described in Talmudic times.
The Afikoman, and Green Onions
There are several indications that earlier Nowruz traditions included playful customs of snatching sweets or bread from one another, both to keep participants awake and to engage children in the holiday. These practices have largely disappeared, and what remains is somewhat unusual: in the Middle Ages, people would customarily strike one another with leather straps – students their teachers, and the poor the wealthy.
A curious echo of this custom survives today at many Passover Seders among Jews of Persian origin, who still playfully strike one another with long green onion stalks to the rhythm of the song Dayenu recited during the Haggadah reading.
A joyful spring holiday to all!
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This article is based on the book by Mah Nishtanah Be’emet? by Dr. Esther Shkalim, with her permission and assistance (“How Is This Different, Really? – The Influence of the Ancient Persian New Year (Nowruz) on Passover Customs and the Haggadah among Jewish Communities”).
