The previous mishnah dealt with the Kiddush we make at the start of the Seder. Our mishnah continues and discusses the stages that follow. Some of what it says is somewhat obscure, and some of it is subject to dispute as to exactly how its various lines are to be understood.
"Heivi'u lefanav" - "They brought before him":
The mishnah does not specify what is brought before him, and there is a difference of opinion in understanding this:
Some have the reading "vegetables" in the mishnah, referring to the kinds of vegetables used for karpas and for chazeres, which is one of the species of maror. The purpose of bringing them is to prompt the children to ask, since it is not our way to bring any vegetable to the table before the bread - which in this case is the matzah.
Others understand that it refers to the table itself, upon which all the components of the meal are set.
"Metabel bachazeres" - "He dips in the chazeres":
Chazeres is one of the species of maror, but the Gemara explains that the primary practice for the first dipping after Kiddush is to use vegetables other than maror, as we do with karpas in salt water. The mishnah comes to teach us that if we have no vegetables available other than the chazeres, even though we will later use it for maror, he still dips it at this stage of the Seder, because we must perform two dippings, as we say in the question of "Mah Nishtanah." Therefore we perform a dipping even with chazeres when necessary.
"Ad shemagia leparperes hapas" - "Until he reaches the parperes of the bread":
What is this "parperes hapas," and what does it refer to? Two explanations have been offered:
The "parperes" refers to the maror eaten immediately after the matzah - it comes together with the bread, together with the matzah. That is, even though we are eating the chazeres now as a kind of karpas, we will not return to eating it until the eating of maror later on.
"Parperes hapas" refers to the matzah itself - that one eats nothing after the dipping of karpas until reaching the eating of the matzah.
Bringing the Seder plate:
At this stage, says the mishnah, they bring before him the components of the plate:
Matzos - for the mitzvah of eating matzah.
Chazeres - for the maror.
Charoses.
Two cooked dishes - two cooked foods: one in memory of the Pesach offering, which is the shank bone; and the second in memory of the chagigah offering, which frequently accompanied the Pesach offering as we have described previously, and which is represented today by the egg.
"Af al pi she'ein charoses mitzvah" - "Even though charoses is not a mitzvah":
According to this opinion, the charoses is not a mitzvah in its own right, and it comes only to blunt the sharpness of the maror so that it will not harm the person. But Rabbi Elazar ben Rabbi Tzadok says: it is a mitzvah - the charoses itself is a mitzvah, and it comes to recall the clay and mortar that the Jews worked with in Egypt in their building labor. For this reason some have the custom to place cinnamon sticks in it, in memory of the straw and stubble that went together with the clay.
The Rambam writes that according to Rabbi Elazar ben Rabbi Tzadok, who holds that charoses is a mitzvah, one should recite over it the berachah "asher kideshanu bemitzvosav vetzivanu al achilas charoses," just as we recite a berachah over the maror and over the matzah. However, the halachah does not follow this opinion.
The mishnah concludes: in the Temple, in the days of the Beis HaMikdash, they would bring before him at this stage the body of the Pesach offering itself, to be eaten together with the matzah and the maror.