Maror Sources
Pesachim 39b:8 (Babylonian Talmud)
We fulfill [our obligation] with all [things] that have the taste of marror ; we do not fulfill [our obligation] with all [things] that do not have the taste of marror .
Excerpt from "A Humanistic Haggadah"
MAROR - THE BITTER HERB - [Maror held up for all to see.] Why do we have Maror on the Seder plate? Tradition says that this bitter herb is to remind us of the bitterness of slavery. As it is said They embittered their lives with hard labor, with mortar and bricks, and with all manner of labor in the field.
Rabbi Shimshon Pincus commentary on the Haggadah
Rabbi Shimshon Dovid Pincus was a 20th century Israeli Haredi Rabbi of American origin
Tiferet – Splendor
Maror is Tiferet because the ultimate expression of Splendor is the beauty that comes from the unification between two seemingly opposite characteristics. Chesed and Gevurah are two distinct traits with their own inherent beauty. But the awesome aspect of unifying Chesed and Gevruah. And why is Maror, bitterness, the best expression of connecting Chesed and Gevurah, kindness and strictness? This is because it is the bitter parts of life where one experiences the unified Chesed that is within Gevurah. When one thinks about the bitterness of the hard times and how, within the difficulty and Gevurah that one is experiencing, is hidden only love and Hashem’s desire to do chesed with us, then that is when one truly feels the splendorous beauty of the unification of the attributes of kindness and strictness. And by focusing on this idea when we eat the Maror at the seder, we can achieve the attribute of Tiferet, in it’s most beautiful form.
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