Chad Gadya — why a goat?

Why, you may ask, have Jews always celebrated goats?

By Arlene Stolnitz

Editor’s note: This is a repeat of this column’s April 2022 article due to its timeliness.

Why? Because they have always lived with goats. In every shtetl, even the poorest family kept a goat to provide milk for the children. roughout the centuries, Jews have identified with the klor vays tsigele, the small white goat, a familiar figure in Jewish culture. According to folklore, it was not unusual for Jews to have their beloved goat sleep inside the house on a cold night!

Who doesn’t know the light-hearted, but symbolic, “Chad Gadya,” sung in a mix of Aramaic and Hebrew every year at the Passover seder?

Or the beloved “Roshinkez Mit Mandlen-Raisins and Almonds,” especially revered by Ashkenazi European Jews. And there is the lesser-known children’s musical game dance, “Yesh Lanu Taish–We Have a Goat.”

Passover will be here soon and a discussion of the symbolism in “Chad Gadya” is appropriate. According to Biblical scripture (Exodus 12:5) the Pesach offering can be either a lamb or a goat. Its sacrifice has come to represent the oppression of the Jewish people throughout the centuries, much like that of the Israelites’ experience in Egypt.

“Roshinkez” tells the story from Yiddish folklore of a small white goat asleep under a baby’s cradle. Written by Abraham Goldfaden, the song has become, in modern times, a metaphor for the extinction of European Jewry during the Holocaust.

We also know “the goat” has appeared in well-known works of art and literature. Many of Chagall’s paintings portray a “goat.” Poems and stories by Shalom Aleichem, Issac Bashevis Singer and I.L. Peretz often include “the goat” in their literature. I recently read “ The Enchanted Tailor” by Shalom Aleichem, which tells a “shtetl" story about the importance of goats to villagers.

As described in the Shalom Aleichem story, “...if there is a goat in the house, you can have a glass of milk for the children, you can cook porridge with milk, you can make a milk soup for dinner, noodles and milk for supper and, besides, you can count on a pitcher of sour cream, a piece of cheese, a bit of butter. Think of it. If we only had a goat! … There is an ancient law that every Jew must own a goat. Let me quote you…”

So, back to the beginning…why a goat? Let’s go back in time. My research shows that goats have been around as far back as prehistoric times. Goats were the first animal to be tamed by humans and were being herded over 9,000 years ago! Earliest remnants of domesticated goats were found in Iran over 10,000 years ago.

This small, useful animal was important in ancient civilizations, especially in the Fertile Crescent. Goats were animals of unique intelligence, virility and behavior. Because of their usefulness and hardiness, the goat is often depicted as a symbol of fertility, abundance, aggression and good luck in many ancient cultures. It is clear to me that, through the centuries, goats played an important role both in household and temple rituals.

My interest in goats was piqued when I visited the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. Their logo is a goat, and I was curious to know why they had chosen this as their symbol. And all of this led me to the article you are reading today.

Arlene Stolnitz, founder of the Sarasota Jewish Chorale, is a member of the Jewish Congregation of Venice. A retired educator from Rochester, New York, she has sung in choral groups for over 25 years and also sings in The Venice Chorale. Her interest in the preservation of Jewish music of all kinds has led to this series of articles on Jewish Folk Music in the Diaspora.