A Statement on Your Seder Plate
Image by kurt Hoffman
Gal Beckerman March 19, 2013
Image by kurt hoffman
Passover always feels both repetitious and fresh.
Every year we are asked to tell the story of enslavement and redemption anew, asked to go through the same motions, dip our fingers in the wine again the same number of times. But there is another imperative — not just to remember our own historic moment of slavery, but to consider freedom more universally, including in our own time and place. The Seder demands that we look around us, at our society and world, and not just into the past.
Nothing exemplifies this duality more than the evolving Seder plate. It contains the same traditional elements that it has for centuries, items whose meaning we know by heart. Parsley to dip in salt water and remind us of bitterness and tears. Charoset, reminiscent of the brick-building mortar. A shankbone to bring us back to the Temple and its sacrifices. An egg (I can’t resist — I have an uncle who every year tells the same profane joke, swearing the egg is to remind us of how high the water of the Red Sea reached as the Israelite men tried to escape).
These are the staples, providing continuity and tradition. But over the past couple decades, some new symbols have joined the plate. They are testament to a desire among Jews to see in the ritual of the Seder an opportunity to make a statement about present-day commitments and beliefs. These foods add to the plate as much as they affirm the spirit of the holiday.
I won’t explain some of these new Seder plate items, since we have some wonderful writers who have taken up the task in our pages. You can click to read Susannah Heschel on the orange (a tradition she invented); Rebecca Alpert on bread; Joshua Lesser on the tomato; and Rebecca Vilkomerson on the olive.
Together these piece add another dimension to Passover’s importance, and highlight maybe it’s least appreciated aspect: a chance for creativity.
An Orange for Women and Marginalized Jews
A Piece of Bread for all the Excluded
A Tomato for Those Still Enslaved
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
