A friend used Facebook (yeah, I know) to post a picture and list of ingredients for what he calls charoses; a list of ingredients, rather than a recipe, because, as he says “I have never made charoses the same way twice. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

Fair enough, although I suspect all the learned rabbis who endlessly debated the matter are spinning quietly in their graves. What particularly struck me about the discussion it detonated was that there was almost no reference to the make-up of his haroset, which is definitely rooted in Sephardic tradition, and a whole lot of theorising about why Jews of different traditions have different ways of pronouncing different words.

I’m flattered that his decision to add wine was prompted by the podcast, even though at least one rabbi advised Jews not to do that for fear of what the gentiles would do. We live in more enlightened times, mostly.