"Thirty days before Pesach we begin inquiring as the requirements of the festival and expounding upon their fulfillment". Pesach, the holiday which celebrates the birth of the Jewish people and its liberation from slavery, is a beautiful Jewish tapestry, woven from threads of mitzvot and customs, poems and declarations, things to eat, things to drink, things to break and things to hide. By beginning thirty days before the holiday to lay its foundations, investing our energies in scrubbing and reading, cooking and inviting, we thereby prepare ourselves for a Pesach Seder overflowing with Jewish meaning and profound renewal.
1. Freedom and Slavery:
The difference between the slave and the free man is not merely one of social position. We can find an enlightened slave whose spirit is free, and, on the other hand, a free man with the mentality of a slave. Intrinsic freedom is that exalted spirit by which man - as well as the nation as a whole - is inspired to remain faithful to his inner essence, to the spiritual attribute of the divine image within him; it is that attribute which enables him to feel that his life has purpose and value. But a person with a slave mentality lives life and harbors emotions rooted not in his essential spiritual nature, but in that which is attractive and good in the eyes of another, who thus rules over him, whether physically or by moral suasion.
We, vanquished in exile, were oppressed for so many hundreds of years by cruel master. But our inner supernal soul is imbued with the spirit of freedom, the spirit of an internal self-knowledge, "engraved upon the tablets" (Shemot 32:16) - do not read "engraved" (charut) but "freedom" (cherut) [Avot 6:2]. Were it not for this wondrous gift bestowed upon us when we went forth to everlasting freedom from Pharaoh, the exile would have transformed the spirit within us into the spirit of a slave. But on the festival of our freedom we demonstrate openheartedly that we truly feel ourselves to be free men in our essence, and that our exalted yearning for the good and the sublime reflects our essential nature, which intuitively recognizes what is good.
This inner liberty is gradually manifesting itself in the small steps of our national renewal, in limited amounts according to the measure of the redemption which is being revealed to us. By the inner light of this essential freedom, we shall move forward to increasingly assert our vigorous inner independence, and independence acquired through the revelation of the Shechinah, when G-d delivered us and our forefathers from Egypt to everlasting freedom. Ma'amrei Re'ayah
2. The Spirituality of Cleaning for Pesach:
The holy master, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, may the memory of a tzaddik be a blessing, would always look upon the fine deeds of his people,
3. Why are this night's festivities called "Seder"?
The word seder means "order". There are so many different mitzvot to perform, customs to observes, things to be said, etc., that it would all become one big jumble had not the Sages of our tradition arranged them in some sort of logical order. Thus, this arrangement gave its name to the entire night's proceedings. Yet, there are deeper reasons why the Pesach Seder is called as it is. The Maharal of Prague explained that the name seder hints to us that everything which befell us from our emergence from
It has also been explained that Pesach, as the first holiday of the Jewish year (recall that we have several Rashei Shanim - "New Years" - the first of Nisan, the month of Pesach being in many ways the primary one), Pesach sets the pattern for each of the others. In a remarkable acrostic letter association in Hebrew, it turns out that
the first day of Pesach falls on the same day of the week as the upcoming Tish'ah Be'av
the second day of Pesach falls on the same day of the week as the upcoming Shavu'ot
the third day of Pesach falls on the same day of the week as the upcoming Rosh HaShanah
the fourth day of Pesach falls on the same day of the week as the upcoming Simchat Torah
the fifth day of Pesach falls on the same day of the week as the upcoming Yom Kippur
the sixth day of Pesach falls on the same day of the week as the previous Purim
the seventh day of Pesach falls on the same day of the week as the upcoming Yom Ha'atzma'ut
Thus, the entire Jewish year is encapsulated in the days of Pesach, and the themes developed in great detail on each of those days are already present as seedlings of ideas on the Seder night!
4. Why is the "book" we use called "Haggadah"?
The word "haggadah" seems to mean "telling" - as in the primary mitzvah of the Seder night - telling the story of coming forth from
5. The Exile of the Word:
R. Yitzchak Luria Ashkenazi, the famous Kabbalist of Tzfat, taught that the word Pesach, a rare Hebrew word, is actually a conflation of two words: Peh - sach, meaning: A speaking mouth. For, he explained, during the entire period of their exile in
Upon gaining their from slavery, they regained their voice. That is why it is most fitting for the holiday of redemption to be called "Peh-sach". This also explains why it is such a great mitzvah to tell the story of coming forth from
6. The Bread of our Impoverishment:
The opening passage of Maggid, the telling of the story, is one of only two passages in the Aramaic language found in the Haggadah. Aramaic, the spoken language of the inhabitants of the Middle East, Jews among them, for over 1,000 years, was the language of the common folk even during the period of Greek and Roman ascendancy, when the Haggadah took on it present form. The question is asked, why is this passage in Aramaic, and a number of answers were given. But perhaps a better question would be, why is the rest in Hebrew? The common folk did not understand Hebrew, to the point where each Hebrew verse of the Torah, when read in public, would be translated on the spot and out loud into Aramaic by a functionary known as a Meturgeman. Indeed, the Shulchan Aruch records the custom of R. Kalonymos of 12th century
The classic question, however, remains: If, despite the above considerations, the vast majority of the Haggadah is in Hebrew, why is this passage in Aramaic. R. Menachem Mendel Kasher, of blessed memory, suggested the following original and convincing explanation:
In
What of the poor, however, who could not afford a Pesach offering, nor were they in a position to "go in" with several others to form a havurah of their own? Well, why not just invite them to some other ccciiiiihavurah? This was actually difficult to arrange, for anyone not present when the group was first drawn up, was not counted as one of those on whose behalf the Pesach was offered, and it would be forbidden subsequently to feed them of its flesh. The solution (and here is R. Kasher's ingenious insight) was to form the havurah including one or two people - the poor, the stranger, etc. - to be named later. Thus, when a particular person showed up, it became clear in retrospect that this was the previously unnamed person for whose sake the Pesach was offered, and the legal requirements were fulfilled. More than this: Since the offering was offered on behalf of extra people, those spaces had to be filled - the members of the havurah needed the poor stranger just as much as he or she needed them!!
Thus, to this day, we say, in a language understood by all: All who are hungry and needy- for food, for companionship, for hearing, for being heard, let them come, eat and take shelter under for a Jewish roof as we reconstitute our people in microcosm!!
7. Double Dipping:
One of the famous four questions asked on Pesach is: "On all other nights we do not dip our food even once - why on this night do we dip twice?" [ In fact, the original wording of this question in the Mishnah was, "On all other nights we dip our food only once" - due to the fact that the prevalent custom was indeed to serve an "appetizer" which involved dipping. A subsequent change in eating habits dictated the adaptation of the wording of the question. With the popularity of Israeli/Middle Eastern foods such as humus and techina nowadays, perhaps we should reinstate the original wording. ] What are the two dippings. The first is almost at beginning of the Seder. Immediately after kiddush and the first cup of wine, we wash our hands as though for bread, but without a blessing, and dip Karpas - a green vegetable - in salt water and say the regular blessing for vegetables before eating it. Which green vegetable? There are different customs, including parsley and celery, but it should be one which is not used for the bitter herbs later in the Seder. The second dipping is when the Maror (bitter herbs) are dipped into Charoset (the sweet paste for which several recipes appear elsewhere herein). For Maror, people use either horseradish or romaine lettuce. If horseradish is used, it should not be the pickled kind with beets mixed in. Rather, buy a fresh horseradish root and cut it or grind it before the start of Pesach, but seal it immediately in an airtight container to retain its zap!! (The "burning" taste is volatile and if left in the open air will simple disappear). Obvious, ground horseradish cannot be "dipped", but you can take a spoonful with Charoset. A chunk of horseradish can be dipped, but watch out as you chew it!!
What is the dipping mean to communicate? It has been written that they symbolize two dippings which "bookend" the story of our slavery in
The second dipping comes as the Jewish people are about to emerge from slavery. The tenth and final plague - the killing of the Egyptian firstborn - is unveiled in Shemot, chapter 11. In chapter 12, the first mitzvot to be given to the Jews in their newborn status as a people are delivered: those surrounding the pesach offering and accompanying meal to be indulged in while the final plague is at its midnight peak. All the Jews are to gather in their homes, no one is to step outside. The doorposts are daubed with the blood of the lamb offered as the pesach offering, applied with a makeshift paintbrush: a bunch of hyssop herb dipped in the sacrificial blood. This second dipping is performed in the presence of each and every Jew - no one is missing, everyone sees. It has been explained that the blood was placed on the inside of the doorposts, for it was the Jews - and not G-d - who needed to see the blood of the Egyptian's gods dripping from their doors to know they were really free.
Two dippings - of Yosef's striped coat into his father Ya'acov's salty tears, and of the disbelieving bitterness of unending slavery into the powerfully sweet "blood" of wine-apple-nut freedom - frame the telling of our story, as we dip into the inexhaustible fund of our tradition's riches to flesh it out.
8. Four Cups or Five?
Drinking four cups of wine is one of the most prominent and well-know features of the Pesach Seder. Unlike eating matzah and bitter herbs, and telling the story of the Exodus, drinking the four cups is not a mitzvah stipulated in the Torah. The Sages established the practice in ancient times, and several explanations were offered as to the basis of instituting the four cups. The most well-known is that each cup represents one of the expressions of redemption of a key passage in the book of Shemot. In that passage, Moshe complains, "Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your Name, he has dealt worse with this people; and still You have not delivered Your people". G-d's response is:
"Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Eternal. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you be My people ... I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya'acov and I will give it to you for a possession, I the Eternal."
Each verb indicate yet another stage in the process of fully emerging from slavery. Being freed from labor was but the first step - the people were still legally slaves until they were delivered from bondage. Once no longer legally slaves, they would need to be redeemed - that is, given the potential for intrinsic worth - both from the context of their slavery and their abject self-conception. This was to be accomplished by removing the people from
The question was asked: If the cups parallel the stages of redemption from Egypt, each stage represented by a Hebrew verb, then what about the verb, "I will bring them to the land"? Is this not an integral part of the process? Such, evidently, was Rabbi Tarfon's view in the Talmud, for he taught that a fifth cup is to be drunk. The majority of the Sages, however, mention only four cups. Perhaps they felt that this matter of coming to the land is a different matter entirely from Redemption from Egypt. In anycase, subsequently there was uncertainty as to whether to drink a fifth cup or not. The matter was left suspended, and, together with all suspended legal uncertainties, will be resolved by Eliyahu (Elijah) when he returns to prepare the way for the final redemption in Messianic times.
The seder, as has been indicated, is divided in two by the meal. What goes on before the meal is retrospective in nature - "a backward glace o'er traveled roads". The portion of the Seder reserved for after the meal is anticipatory of the future. If the first part of the Seder - the story of coming forth from Egypt - is to be told "as though one personally emerged from Egypt", then the anticipation of the final redemption must also be engaged in as though it is right at the doorstep, literally. Thus, we open the post-meal section by opening the door to the future, to reconnection and wholeness, to Eliyahu.
Now we can understand why it is called the "cup of Eliyahu" - it is not for him to drink (as we all used to think in childhood" - rather, it is for him to rule whether our drinking it as a fifth cup is appropriate. It so, then why pour the cup before we know the answer ? What if Eliyahu doesn't come this evening?
On Pesach night that thought cannot be entertained - of course Eliyahu and all he signifies will come, and of course he will rule that our return to the Land of Israel is the final stage of our redemption from exile and servitude - in Egypt and in all the places ever since Egypt, as the Egyptian experience served as archetype for Jewish historical experience. For, as the Tosefot said in parable in this regard: "A slave who has been freed and into whose hands has been entrusted his master's precious vessel, if he not bring him to his own dwelling-place, how has he really benefited him?"
9. Chametz, Pride, Idolatry
What could be the reasons why, of all prohibited food substances, there is nothing whose prohibitions are as severe as Chametz on Pesach? We find several explanations in the sources, one being that, since it is something which is permissible all year round, we must be extra careful with it during the period of its prohibition lest, through sheer habit, we come to eat it.
It has seemed to some that this explanation is insufficient to explain the "deep" meaning of the prohibition of Chametz. One more promising approach is to look at what chametz might symbolize. The classic association is of yeast (S'or in Hebrew) with the urge toward evil, the Yetzer Harah, or, in more modern terms, the tendency to see everything as revolving around oneself. We speak of having an inflated, or overinflated sense of self, of being puffed up with overweening pride, and the imagery is very "bread-like". Recall the Pillsbury Doughboy, recall the feel of breadmaking, of flour and water becoming springy and fleshlike as you knead them into dough, and you'll understand the imagery of the prayer uttered by one Sage of the Talmud: Master of the Universe! It is revealed and apparent before You that our desire is to do Your will. What stands in our way? The "yeast" in the "dough". Matzah, on the other hand, symbolizes humility, a lack of self-inflationary arrogance, an ability to see things from the other's perspective, and consequently, an ability to see thing from the Divine perspective. The Talmud records G-d saying, as it were, of the prideful and arrogant: I cannot live in the same world as this one" - implying that too much self-referential pride "crowds out" G-d, so to speak.
Thus the road is paved for a deeper, more spiritual understanding of the symbolism of Chametz. Rabbi Kasher has explained that the origin of the severity of the prohibition of Chametz lies in its connection with idolatry. Bread as we know it was invented in ancient Egypt (as was another product of indolent fermentation: beer!). In that mother of ancient civilizations, indulgence and idolatry mixed freely in the upper classes. The Jews in Egypt were steeped in idolatry, and that is why they were commanded: (With)draw and take for yourselves a kid for each household...and slaughter it as a sheltering (pesach in Hebrew). The Oral Tradition explains: Withdraw your hands from idolatry and take the kid, the god of the Egyptians and slaughter it before their eyes. Pesach starts with a public renunciation of idolatry. And as evidenced by the Talmud, in ancient Egypt a choice offering to the gods was the newly developed, delicate and tasty leavened bread.
Some of the legal parallels between idolatrous images and appurtenances and chametz serve to further confirm the symbolic connection:
1) Both are prohibited in the smallest possible quantity - there is no minimum amount less than which is considered to be nullified by whatever else might be present in a mixture.
2) It is prohibited even to possess both chametz during Pesach and idolatrous images.
3) Both must be disposed of by burning or otherwise completely destroying them.
4) Both can be nullified by the declaration or action of their rightful owner - in the case of idolatrous images, that is a non-Jew; in the case of chametz, that would be a Jew before Pesach.
5) Regarding both it is required to make a thorough search to make sure nothing has been inadvertently left behind.
10. Breaking the Middle Matzah:
For Shabbat and most holidays, we begin the meals with a brachah over two loaves of bread. We are careful that the loaves should be whole, as they represent the double portion of manna with which the Jewish people were blessed on the eve of Shabbat. Yet on Pesach, we intentionally break one of the loaves. The middle of the three matzot is broken ceremoniously, the larger piece wrapped and set aside to be used as the afikoman, the final taste left in our mouths at the conclusion of the Seder's meal. Why are we not concerned with the same symbolism as occupies us on other holidays?
In fact, there are those who explain that the whole purpose of the third matzah is to provide the second whole matzah to ensure that the brachah of hamotzi will be said over two whole loaves. But that just begs the question: why break the second matzah in the first place, thus necessitating a third?
The simple answer is that matzah is called "Lechem Oni", which can be translated - "answering bread" - bread over which people's needs are responded to and answered. The same phrase literally means, "Bread of Impoverishment", and, presumably, the poor have always had to make due with scraps and pieces, rather than whole loaves.
Referring to Matzah, however, as "The Bread of Impoverishment", or, more standardly, "The Bread of Affliction", isn't so easy, however. The only reference to matzah in the Torah is when the Jewish people were so rushed to leave Egypt that they did not have time to allow the dough to rise before they needed to leave. They therefore baked it into flat, unleavened cakes, and those cakes - matzot have ever since represented redemption.
Which is it ,then, bread of liberation or bread of enslavement. Was is the hand of another which hurried us from task to task such that we had not the time to properly tend to our own well-being, or was it that internal compulsion to rush to assume our identities as new, free beings that made bread-baking a secondary concern?
Pesach is a time for splitting things: The Red Sea was split for the Jewish people upon their Exodus. G-d smote the first born, while sheltering the Jews, at the "splitting of the night" - at midnight. The darkness of night is the enveloping oppression of slavery and exile in Egypt. As the Jewish people was about to slide into total oblivion, as it was poised to merge into the morass of peoples that was Egypt, G-d, with exquisite timing, split open the visionless night. The night was split and the Jewish "split" Egypt.
11. Hagaddah: Telling or Pulling?
The word haggadah seems to mean "telling" - as in the primary mitzvah of the Seder night - telling the story of coming forth from Egypt.
There is a secondary meaning of the word, however - "to pull out, to draw to oneself" - as reflected in the cognate root in the Aramaic translation to Shemot 12:21 - "Draw and take for yourselves sheep". On this basis, the Chasidic masters interpret that the central thrust of telling the story is to draw into our lives the power of the great miracles of redemption of those times - to make the exodus from Egypt as real for us as it was for our ancestors. As states in the Haggadah - "In every generation one is obligated to see himself as if he/she came forth from Egypt."
As interpreted in a Chasidic spirit: "One is positively charged when one truly sees oneself vitally connected to every generation. Then it is as though one has him/herself come forth from Egypt". Thus, we "pull" the very fabric of the reality of then into now - we have the power by our reenactment through telling the story to create a "time warp" - a context in which Jewish identity suffers no discontinuity but rather enjoys a radical oneness - ourselves with each other, with generations past, and with the Holy One of Being.
12. Three Approaches to Arranging the Seder Plate
There are two prevailing "authorized customs as to how we arrange the five or six (this also depends upon custom) items, or simanim, on the Seder Plate.
One "authorized" tradition might be termed maximal utility: There is a principle in Halachah that ein ma'avirin al hamitzvot, We do not "pass over" (the opportunity to do) mitzvot. Therefore, if we have a number of items each of which is associated with a different mitzvah, we should arrange them in such a way that when we first reach for one of them, our hand first encounters the item needed first, the second item second, and so forth. The application of this principle to the items on the Seder plate yield one of the traditional arrangements, that associated with the Rema {Rabbi Moshe Isserles} (and most commonly with the tradition of five simanim – Karpas, Maror, Charoset, Beitzah, and Zeroa)
The second tradition might be called maximal symbolism. Each of the six simanim are associate with one of the ten Kabbalistic sefirot. When the three matzot are added, plus the Seder plate itself, then we have a total of ten items, corresponding in compelling fashion to each of the ten classical sefirot. As the six simanim (the ones listed above, plus chazeret) are seen to correspond to the "emotional" sefirot, from Chesed through Yesod, and as those sefirot are most frequently represented in their relationships with one another, we arrange the simanim on the Seder plate in like fashion. This arrangement has the simanim arrayed as two sets of points on the vertices of triangles set point down, one above the other. An upside down triangle is the shape of the Hebrew vowel segol, and the two triangles, taken together, represent the flow and interaction beween the sefirot.
There is, however, an unacknowledged third manner of arranging the simanim. This approach can be called maximal aesthetics. Since the classic plate is round, and since there are six items to tastefully display, many people have adopted the practice of arranging the simanim in a beautiful, symmetrical fashion, equally spaced along the rim of the plate. Some Seder plates come equipped with six small plates which fit into wells, each decorated appropriately.
But how can this be? There are two and only two authorized arrangements – this third arrangement is a Johnny-come-lately, perhaps born of ignorance of the tradition, and such developments have been pruned by the Sages throughout the ages.
Or not. "Leave Israel alone – if they are not themselves prophets, then they are the descendants of prophets". The Jewish people have a say, even if technically speaking they're "wrong". (There's that other, parallel statement – "Leave Israel alone – it's better they violate accidentally rather than intentionally") The aesthetic balance of engaging the entire people as an entity, in the living dynamic of customs forged and destroyed in the furnace of the people's unconscious, intuitive core, claims its place in the order of the day, presented on a platter to Jews emerging from Egypt!
13. An Instructive Use of a Technical Term: Tze U'Lemad
Tze U'Lemad - Go out and Learn - is NOT frequently used in the Talmud, although it is not as infrequent a term in the Midrash. The rarity of this term has already been remarked upon by R. Meir Ish-Shalom, the 19th century well-known editor of Midrash manuscripts.
A more common term in both Talmud and Midrash is Bo U'Re'eh - "Come and see". The Aramaic term Ta Shma - Come and hear - is very commonly used, as is the similar term, Ta Chazei - "Come and see" - in the Zohar.
Furthermore, the term Tze U'Lemad is almost always used to bring a proof or a deeper insight to a matter which has already been raised. In the Hagaddah, however, there is no obvious previously discussed topic for which this Tze U'Lemad is marshalling proof. It could be that the previous passage, V'Hi Sheamdah, is the claim for which evidence is being marshalled. "Not only once did they stand up against us to destroy us, but in every generation..." - then, "Go out and learn what Lavan the Aramean sought to do to Ya'acov, our father, for Pharaoh only decreed against the males, but Lavan sought to to uproot everything.
However, if this were the case, we should read, "Tze U'Lemad Mi...", "Go out and learn from. That is the form of this term everywhere it appears except here.
I wish to suggest, therefore, that the term that should have been used was the more standard one, Bo U'Reah. It cannot be used here, however, since we are to see ourselves as though we are in Egypt ourselves, a place of the depths of depravity and impurity. Moshe did not prophecy in Egypt, and we cannot learn Torah in Egypt. We need to GO OUT and only then LEARN. In fact, the entire Exodus is for the purpose of receiving Torah at MT. Sinai - what better way to encapsulate that than the phrase Tze U'Lemad!! When we say this phrase, we take a giant step toward leaving Egypt! Not just the Egypt of yore, within which we are to envision ourselves, but also the Egypt of fixed, ossified frameworks of our own making which we project upon the world. Go out from your preconceptions if you wish to learn, just as Hashem said to Avraham when he "doubted" whether he could father a child: "Go out from your astrological prognostications" - Avram cannot bear a child, but Avraham CAN.
The You you imagine yourself to be cannot be transformed, but the You who has not been realized yet, who is poised to spring into the world - its very being is transformation, so "GO OUT AND LEARN"
14. Wrapped in Redemption: The Hillel Sandwich
There is a dispute in the Gemara as to how the korban pesach should be eaten. A verse in the Torah instructs us, "upon matzah and maror shall you eat it [the korban pesach]. Hillel understands this literally: "upon" implies, make a sandwich of all three – meat and bitter herbs wrapped in unleavened bread [note: fresh-baked matzah of old was thicker and softer than our present-day matzah. The Sephardi tradition maintains this form of matzah, which is more like a pittah than the matzah most of us are familiar with. It is unleavened – no yeast or sourdough leavening agent is added – but it is soft and pliable within the first few hours of its baking, longer by modern refrigeration]. The other Rabbis understood the word al ('upon") as "along with". Indeed, that usage is common in the Torah. Unlike Hillel, who insisted that the only way to fulfill the mitzvah of eating the korban pesach was in sandwich form, the Rabbis said that as long as matzah and maror were part of the meal, the requirement was fulfilled.
We are taught that matzah symbolizes ge'ulah, redemption, while marror symbolizes galut, exile and enslavement. Hillel insists that they both be consumed simultaneously. He thereby teaches us that exile and redemption are forever entwined in a ceaseless dynamic in which the incremental progress toward perfection is often masked by hopes repeatedly raised and dashed.
It was for this reason that, at the revelation of the Burning Bush, when Hashem revealed His identity to Moshe as "Eh-yeh Ahser Eh-yeh", understood by the Midrash as "I will be with them in this trouble and woe, as I will be with them in future troubles and woe", that Moshe responded to Hashem and said, "One trouble at a time is enough". The ability to see redemption through the veil of exile is reserved only for the likes of Moshe, Hillel, and those who aspire to be inspired by their example and teaching.
15: "All our women are significant": Leaning on the Rema at the Pesach Seder.
The Gemara in Pesachim 108a discusses the rabbinic requirement to lean/recline at the Pesach Seder, minimally while fulfilling the mitzvah of eating matzah and drinking the four cups of wine. In that discussion, the question of who is obligated to recline is broached. The Gemara asks whether a son must recline in the presence of his father; whether a disciple must recline in the presence of his master, and it precedes these queries with the following:
A woman by her husband (i.e., in his presence) does not need to lean;
an ishah chashuva (an important, impressive, or, perhaps, significant woman) must lean.
What is the rationale for this exemption? The Rashbam, the major commentator on this portion of Pesachim, cites two explanations:
1) The fear/awe of her husband is upon her, and she is subordinate to him.
2) In the name of the Sheiltot: It is not the manner of women to recline, i.e., it is inappropriate.
What practical difference is there between the two explanations? Rabbenu Yerucham, brought by the Beit Yosef, asserts that according to the first explanation, a widow or a divorcee would be obligated to recline, while according to the second explanation, a widow or a divorcee would also be exempt.
It is difficult to see how the second explanation accounts for the words "by her husband" in the Gemara, since the presence of the husband in irrelevant to the reasoning. Indeed, the Aruch Hashulchan notes that in some manuscripts of the Talmud those words are missing, and the Rashbam's opening quote of the text of the Gemara indicates that his version was also lacking those words.
The Beit Yosef, in his Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chayyim 472:4), rules in accordance with the second explanation; that is, he exempts from the obligation to recline all women except for an ishah chashuva. The Rema comments on that ruling with the following words, brought in the name of the Tosafot (via Rabbenu Yerucham and the Mordechai): All of our women are considered hashuvot, significant…
According to the Rema, then, all women should be obligated to recline at the Seder. The Rema continues, however, by noting that the custom of women is not to lean, and he asserts that they rely upon the opinion of the Ra'aviyah. The Ra'aviyah had ruled several centuries before in Germany that nowadays, since it is not the custom all year long to recline while eating – the wealthy and wellborn do not recline while eating – therefore, at the Seder, one sits as one is accustomed to sit. This opinion is mentioned also by the Beit Yosef, who notes that already in the times of the Rishonim it was marked as an isolated opinion, and he disregards it in his decision. The Rema, like other Ashkenazic poskim (notably, the Bach), does not entirely disregard it, and here, he does not hesitate to affirm that this is the basis of the women's custom.
Why does he assert this with such certainty? How does he know? After all, elsewhere the Rema doesn't hesitate to critique a questionable custom, or, if seeking to support a custom, to indicate that he is speculating regarding its possible source?
In attempting to address this question, perhaps we should try to better understand the term ishah chashuva. The Aruch Hashulchan (Orach Chayyim 472:6) notes that the meaning of the term will depend upon which of the two above-mentioned explanations for the exemption of women we adopt.
1) According to the approach of the Sheiltot, ishah chashuva is an objective term, referring to a woman generally considered to be beautiful and wealthy. The Aruch Hashulchan refers us to the mention of ishah chashuva in the context of the laws of remaining alone with idolaters (Avodah Zara 25b). There, Rashi explains the term to mean a woman whose elevated standing in the eyes of women derives from her beauty, while in the eyes of men it derives from her connections with the upper echelons of power (a connection that in pre-modern times was inevitably connected to money). Thus, an ishah chashuva must recline, since it is indeed the manner of a woman of such stature to recline.
2) According to the Rashbam's approach, ishah chashuva is a subjective term, referring to a woman in whom the husband takes pride, and who he considers to be of a higher standing than he.
Now, while it is possible to explain that the Aruch Hashulchan is referring to a situation where the husband has "married up", marrying a woman of higher social standing, and therefore her significance in his eyes derives from the importance he places on her lofty origins, there is another possibility, one which, I believe, better explains the words of the Rema. The Talmud (Yevamot 62b) teaches:
One who loves his wife as his own self, and honors her more than his own self, and guides his sons and daughters on the upright path, and marries them off as they come of age, of him it is stated, "You will know that your tent is at peace; when you visit your home you will find no one missing" (Iyov 5:24).
Note the sequential structure of the baraita, which hints that we are speaking here of a sequence of stages each of which builds upon the prior stage. Specifically regarding our matter, one who truly loves one's wife as oneself cannot help but claim for her a standing on her own, and see her as one whose value is inherent and not derivative. Loving such a free agent, one notes how amazingly different she is, how she has access to realms unimagined by her husband, how her being fills in for him a cavernous lack of which only now he becomes aware. This leads to an attitude of profound respect, and, in the words of the Aruch Hashulchan, he glories in her, and her level (he sees as) higher than his.
Note the words of the Rema: All our women are considered significant. Ruling in accordance with the Rashbam's explanation, the Rema all but says explicitly that it is the approach taken by the husbands that unlocks the significance of the wives. See how the Rema follows up by immediately modeling himself as the ideal husband: Instead of asserting that the practice of the wives derives from some ignorant mistake (after all, the vast majority of the women were completely untutored in the textual sources of the halakhic literature), he affirms that the women rely upon the Ra'aviyah. This affirmation assumes that the custom is valid and well-founded, an assumption based on deep respect. Recall that the Ra'aviyah implies that nowadays, since even the nobles and highborn sit upright at their meals, this is what we should do. In other words, we fulfill the intent of reclining, namely, acting as free people, precisely by sitting upright as even the most unencumbered of our society do.
I believe that the Rema is claiming not that women read the Ra'aviah, but that their intuitive grasp of the practice was in accord with the Ra'aviah's understanding. Indeed, the question may be asked of the majority of the Rishonim: since we are supposed to perform the mitzvot of the Seder in the manner of free people and nobles, why are we shackled to a dining etiquette which has long since ceased to indicate freedom? The Aruch Hashulchan justifies the normative practice by asserting that nowadays we recline in order to insert yet another deviation from everyday practice into the Seder, and thus further stimulate the children to ask questions.
Men, therefore, recline, not for the sake of reclining, but in order to enhance dramatically the mitzvah of asking and telling. In doing this, despite the change in the significance of leaning, they lean on the mesorah received generation after generation.
Women, on the other hand, do not recline, but partake of the Seder as noble and wellborn individuals partake of their celebratory meals. In doing this, they lean on their insight (and on the Ra'aviyah!)
Leaning on each other, men and women together fulfill the paradoxical dictates of freedom, in letter and spirit. By the merit of righteous women were we redeemed from
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