At the first Seder my husband and I hosted in 1999, we eagerly incorporated two feminist rituals we had seen in the Ma’yan Passover Haggadah. We placed a Miriam’s Cup (a wedding gift from several years beforehand) on our Seder table and an orange on our Seder plate. Our mothers cheered.
In the following 10 years, we gained two children, lost two parents and wrote our own Haggadah. Looking back, I realize that one of these rituals, Miriam’s Cup, endured, whereas we no longer use the orange. Several other friends, educated Jewish feminists, had the same experience.
Miriam’s Cup is now mainstream. It appears in Haggadot endorsed by the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, it is recommended by the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism and it is embraced by Orthodox feminists. It is sold at many Judaica stores. In contrast, none of my daughter’s day school teachers had heard of the orange. They all knew of Miriam’s Cup, and the kids even made them in kindergarten. I began to wonder why one new feminist ritual would persist so powerfully and spread so quickly, while the other faded.
The ritual of placing an orange on the Seder plate is actually two distinct rituals — one intended by its creators and the more widespread practice that was transformed through the folk process.
The scholar Susannah Heschel has described how, in the early 1980s, she heard that students at Oberlin College had suggested a crust of bread be placed on the Seder plate to symbolize that lesbians had been as excluded from Judaism like bread was from a Seder plate. Not wanting people to think that lesbians were as forbidden as hametz on Passover, she replaced the bread with an orange. The orange, she has said, symbolized the fruitfulness of fully inclusive Judaism.
Somehow, through the broke telephone of the folk process (and probably partly as a result of homophobia), the story that spread was very different. In it, a man is said to have told Heschel, “Women belong on the bimah” — or as rabbis, or reading Torah, depending on the variation — “as much as an orange belongs on the Seder plate.” In response, the story goes, she placed an orange on her Seder plate. The latter version is what we heard in the 1990s that prompted us to adopt the ritual.
The ritual of Miriam’s Cup at the Seder emerged slightly later. As described in the Ma’yan Haggadah, in 1989 women in a Rosh Hodesh group were looking at traditional texts to create new rituals. They discussed the midrash of Miriam’s Well. Miriam’s Well was first described by Rashi in the 11th century to explain the juxtaposition of Miriam’s death and the shortage of water, expanding upon a brief mention of the well in the Talmud. Miriam’s Well appeared in the desert whenever the Israelites lacked water, saving them.
Stephanie Loo Ritari took this powerful image a step further. Inspired by her Kiddush cup, she created a Miriam’s Cup filled with spring water to commemorate the well’s life-giving waters. The group of women quickly latched on to the ritual, using it at Shabbat, Rosh Hodesh and in particular at the Passover Seder, where it quickly spread.
Reflecting on our experiences with these rituals over the years, there are several reasons why we embraced Miriam’s Cup and dropped our use of the orange. The most obvious reason is the deep textual connection Miriam, Moses’ sister, has to the Passover story.
Though Miriam is not in the traditional Haggadah (which actually only mentions Moses once), she has several parts in the biblical Exodus story. She watches Moses in the basket, arranges for their mother to be his wet nurse, and famously leads the women in song and dance in celebration of the Exodus. The orange, by design, has no connection to the Passover story (except through the theme of oppression). Emphasizing Miriam inspired my family to add all these biblical texts to our Haggadah, as well as those about other females heroes, like the midwives who refused to kill the Israelite boys.
While the orange highlights the pain of exclusion, it is not successful in transforming this righteous indignation into empowerment and inclusion. Nor does it acknowledge the great strides that have been made in these areas.
My daughter is lucky enough to grow up in a feminist and gay-positive shul and day school. The idea that gays and lesbians don’t belong in Judaism or that women don’t belong on the bimah sounds ridiculous to her and doesn’t resonate with her personal experience. Thanks to those who struggled for equality before her, she doesn’t viscerally feel the pain of exclusion that the orange symbolizes. But she will be emboldened by growing up with Miriam as a canonized Passover hero.
Aurora Mendelsohn is a biostatistician who lives in Toronto.
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thoughtful essay. thanks so much for sharing it. your reasoning works for me!
Enjoy the attached article. Bring on the matza; and orange...
I too have been putting an orange on my Seder plate since I first became aware of the custom some twenty years or more ago. In the version I heard, Susana Heschel was speaking in North Miami Beach, so that resonated with me, as at the time I was living in Miami. But unlike this author, I have no intentions of dropping the custom--I not only do it at my family Seder, but at the Seder in the nursing home where I ama chaplain as well. My family, residents and guests all respond very positively both to the symbolism and the story. My grandchildren would find it strange to haave a Seder without an orange!
The whole thing here sounds pathetic.
After all, the Mishna teaches "Eizehu ashir? Hasame'ah behelko."
A woman is a woman. If she is not satisfied to be a woman, then she has a problem. Adopting strange un-Jewish symbols will not solve her problem. But it will estrange her from the Torah community.
A seder without an orange is like a fish without a bicycle!
Oy. My seder plate will always have an orange on it. The story I heard years ago, is the story of the woman on the bimah. We have always included it and will do so with even more fervor now that you have shared the "true" story - the story of exclusion based on orientation.
Although my children are growing up, Baruch Hashem, in world of inclusion...not everyone is. My kids are also growing up in a world where slavery is a stange concept - and yet they grasp the meaning because of the seder...isn't it that like the four children of the seder - no matter their perception or cognitive ability to understand the story - we must tell it to them in a way they can grasp?
We also include something else on our seder table...the actual gnarly deformed root of the horseradish - on a separate plate ...I put it out and tell the children that it is there to symbolize the "root of all evil" - which is the feeling of social, economic, or religious heirarchy - teaching them I hope that the real story of Passover that we can apply in this day the story beyond the miracles...is to see worth in each person and their story - and to always remember, that we too can misstep and become the oppressors - more akin to Pharoah than to Moses and Miriam. And that..Laser, would truly estrange us from the Torah community...and mostly from the path Hashem has lit for us. If we went with Ms. Mendelsohn's take on things...why have a seder at all...?
I really like the symbolism of the gnarly horseradish root. We always have a big chunk of the root on the seder plate, but this year I will be thinking about, and maybe discussing, the 'root of all evil'. Thank you for sharing your custom.
On a separate note, I must point out that unfortunately SLAVERY is NOT a strange concept in our world. It is a sad fact that there are 27 million people currently being held in some form of slavery, not only in places like India and Cambodia, but in the United States as well. At our seder table this year when we recite the passage, "once we were slaves, now we are free" we will also share information about modern day slavery and what we can and must do to stop it. There are many organizations doing the incredible work of finding, freeing and rehabilitating these children, women and men. As free people who have experienced slavery, we have the responsibility to support this work and bring an end to slavery in our world.
I think that you are right. Now we know that horseradish is the root of all evil. How about a return to the sources instead of patting oneself on the back for a clever play on words?
I think the person who described this exchange as pathetic hit it right on the head.
Um, Laser, it was you who used the word pathetic, and I don't find it helpful. This is a discussion of the evolving history of Jewish civilization (thank you Recon Jews). I agree that keeping the orange on the seder plate is important. Even though women and gays can be rabbis and there are many welcoming synagogues, the effort to fully include our gay and lesbian (and trans and bisexual) is still evolving.
My Seder table will always have an orange on it, too. To echo Bonnie, while some of us are growing up in a "world of inclusion," too many of us still remain silenced, stifled, and/or discriminated against for our sexual orientation or gender identity. The fight is far from over. Dropping the orange just because SOME progress has been made in the past few decades seems irresponsible and short-sighted. As it was expressed earlier, why have a Seder at all if Jews haven't been slaves for 3,000 years? For more about the evolving history of the orange on the Seder plate, check out the blog post "What's in an Orange?" on "Jewesses With Attitude," the blog of the Jewish Women's Archive - http://jwablog.jwa.org/node/121 ... and thanks for sharing these new rituals!
Thanks for the blog post address Jordan... Just a few points...Laser - it is straight out of "the sources " ie Abraham and Sarah that we can have this debate - a beautiful debate, that, by the way, is all about how to make a 3000 year old holiday more meaningful -a debate which is encouraged in the Hagaddah itself when it clues us in to the Four Children and how to best share our story - in an individualized way for each. Remember, it was Abraham who had the audacity to question Hashem - and as such, I see the questioning an act of devotion. Sarah, well, she laughed at Hashem, not completely able to accept the miracle of Isaac at first draft. As Jews, we question, we teach, we legitamize. And somehow, because of this, I think, we are still at it this many years later. Because we do act as if it is all of us who were brought out of Egypt.
Robin, please know that I, too teach my kids about slavery -- in all its forms - in different countries and cultures. What I meant, of course, is that they have never met an actual slave - We do discuss how a bully can try to make you his/her slave in the schoolyard, or how people can be slaves to their addictions. Now that they are older, they come to pick out the gnarly root with me - and try to find one that, for them, is ugly enough to embody the evil they are wary of-both in others...but even more so in themselves. We also talk about the orange and connect the vitamin C in it to the increased energy we all get when we open our hearts and minds to people we were leary of. Shabbat Shalom!
Bonnie, You have every right to sit down with your family and eat oranges.
And you can tell them that vitamin C gives them energy, whether or not thwere is a factual basis for that.
You can tell them that Avraham Avinu and Sara Imenu ate oranges and argued about how to set the seder plate.
And you can tewll them that horseradish is the root of all evil, and expect them to take you seriously about anything else you might say.
Just don't confuse that with a Pessah seder.
I am a rabbi with an adopted son who is a Palestinian Muslim. When he attended his first traditional Pesach Seder he looked at the Seder table. We were at the family home of a well known Jewish feminist. Items of the table are intended to arouse questions.
As Kiddush was about to be recited- he looked at the table and asked, in all sincerity, "Where is the orange."
He thought it was a Pesach ritual requirement.
Bonnie, You have every right to sit down with your family and eat oranges.
And you can tell them that vitamin C gives them energy, whether or not thwere is a factual basis for that.
You can tell them that Avraham Avinu and Sara Imenu ate oranges and argued about how to set the seder plate.
And you can tewll them that horseradish is the root of all evil, and expect them to take you seriously about anything else you might say.
Just don't confuse that with a Pessah seder.
Thank goodness a Pesach Seder is a Jewish tradition that allows us to celebrate with our own individual variations. So Laser, what gives u the right to decide what a seder is and what a seder is not? Julie
Julie, you seem to have a basic mistake.
A Pessah seder is not just ANYTHING that a Julie or a Bonnie wants to make it. The content is prescribed. And not be me, as Kulie asks.
You and your friends of course have every right to sit down with your family and eat oranges.
And you and your friends can make up facts and tell them that vitamin C gives them energy.
You can even tell them that Avraham Avinu and Sara Imenu ate oranges and argued about how to set the seder plate.
And you can tell them that horseradish is the root of all evil. But you may have difficulty getting them to take you seriously about anything else you might say.
Just don't confuse that with a Pessah seder. Because the sefer is just that: a prescribed order. Maybe you suied to sing as a child: Qadesh, Urhatz, Karpas, . . . . That has not changed.
Sorry about that typo. What I menat to write was: Maybe you used to sing as a child: Qadesh, Urhatz, Karpas, . . . . That has not changed.
Sorry about that typo. What I menat to write was: Maybe you used to sing as a child: Qadesh, Urhatz, Karpas, . . . . That has not changed.
Corrected post; sorry for the typos once again.
Mon. Mar 30, 2009
Julie, you seem to have a basic mistake.
A Pessah seder is not just ANYTHING that a Julie or a Bonnie wants to make it. The content is prescribed. And not by me, as Julie asks.
You and your friends, of course, have every right to sit down with your family and eat oranges.
And you and your friends can make up facts and tell your family that vitamin C gives them energy.
You can even tell them that Avraham Avinu and Sara Imenu ate oranges and argued about how to set the seder plate.
And you can tell them that horseradish is the root of all evil. But after that, you may have difficulty getting them to take you seriously about anything else you might say.
Just don't confuse that with a Pessah seder. Because the seder is just that: a prescribed order. Maybe you used to sing as a child: Qadesh, Urhatz, Karpas, Yahatz, . . . . That has not changed.
We don't sing "Qadesh, Urhatz, Karpas, Yahatz, TAPUZ, . . ."
Want to be feminist AND traditional? Re-adopt Rav Saadia Gaon's Seder plate which included the egg, the shankbone AND a piece of fish to represent Moses, Aaron AND Miriam.
If Laser had said to Bonnie that she has every right to explain, at her seder, that Pesach encourages us to challenge the problems of this world, including prejudice against the GL community, but that an orange really does not belong on a seder plate, he might have some credibility. But his reference to vitamin C or horseradish as the root of all evil...is irrelevant to this discussion.