Just in Time

In a previous post I asked about the meaning of the "urhatz" ritual at the Pesach Seder.  In the times of the Bet Hamikdash, we used to do netilat yadayim before eating vegetables that had come into contact with water, but nowadays netilat yadayim is only before bread.  Why do we do netilat yadayim before karpas at the seder?

One approach to answering this question is to suggest that the reason that we wash our hands is to emphasize the fact that the karpas, by the time we eat it, will become mekabel tumah (or in English, "susceptible to ritual impurity").  We are emphasizing the fact that the dipping of the karpas, which chronologically follows the urhatz ritual, will render the karpas mekabel tumah.  In fact, let's go all the way and suggest that the entire reason for dipping the karpas in the first place is to render it mekabel tumah.  Urchatz, then, serves to emphasize this point.  If this approach is correct, then the fact that karpas is mekabel tumah is essential to the meaning of the karpas ritual.  But why would that be?  What is the significance of eating a vegetable that is mekabel tumah at the seder?

Let me answer that question by giving you a homework assignment, Dear Reader.  Remember that midrash where it says that The Jewish People had sunk to the 49th level of tumah in Egypt?  (This is supposed to explain the 49 days of the omer between Pesach and Shavuot.)  Well, your job is to find it and provide a reference to it, preferably a hyperlink to the full text online in English (with a citation of the original source, of course.)  I think it says in that midrash that if The Jewish People had reached the 50th level of tumah, there would have been no going back.  Symbolically, when we eat the karpas, we rescue it from becoming tamei, just in time.