Excerpt from "A Humanistic Haggadah"
TAPPUZ - ORANGE - [Orange held up for all to see.] Leader: TAPPUZ - Why have we added an orange to our Seder plate? This orange is a symbol of the liberation of sexuality and gender roles. We place this fruit among our ceremonial foods as a symbol of our inclusion and acknowledgement of sexual minorities in our community. We recognize the contributions made by these family members and friends. By welcoming all with open hearts and minds, we celebrate diversity and freedom. The olive is the newest item on our seder plate. We add it as a reminder that we must all be God’s bearers of peace and hope in the world. At the same time, we eat this olive in sorrow, mindful that olive trees, the source of livelihood for Palestinian farmers, are regularly chopped down, burned and uprooted by Israeli settlers and the Israeli authorities. As we look on, Israel pursues systematic policies that increasingly deny Palestinians access to olive orchards that have belonged to them for generations. As we eat now, we ask one another: How will we, as Jews, bear witness to the unjust actions committed in our name? These olives challenge us to be bearers of peace and hope for Palestinians – and for all who are oppressed.
Ariel Pelaia, about.judaism.com
Orange: An optional addition, the orange is a recent seder plate symbol and not one that is used in many Jewish homes. It was introduced by Susannah Heschel, a Jewish feminist and scholar, as a symbol that represents inclusiveness in Judaism, specifically women and the GLBT community. Originally, she'd suggested putting a crust of bread on the seder plate, which didn't catch on, and later suggested the orange, which has caught on in some communities.
A modest proposal as to why and how it is okay for Christians to celebrate a Passover Seder
Connie Tuttle
As pastor of a progressive, feminist church (note the orange on the Seder plate) with a community of women and men, many races, gender identifications and sexual orientations, the Seder is a time of remembering Godde’s promises, given and fulfilled, and Godde’s call for us to live into freedom. In the remembering and telling the story each year we are encouraged, renewed, challenged and sent forth with hope.
I agree that the celebration of the Seder meal should never supplant the Exodus story with the Christian story as the ‘conclusion’ of Godde’s activity in history. The point of the Seder is to remember who we are, to remember Godde’s intention, desire and liberating acts for humanity, to own the places where we participate in our own oppression and the oppression of others, and to depart with the hope of Godde’s continued redemption of humankind.
It is not a Christo-centric story. Neither is a story exclusive to Jews. It is our story, wherever we find ourselves in it. It is a story that brings both judgment and hope. It speaks to Godde’s movement in history and to the journey of the community of faith and of individual souls. It frames for us an understanding of who Godde is and how Godde acts. In the telling of our story each year, we learn as we hear and speak the words, listen with our bodies when we eat the lessons, and sing with our hearts as we insert our personal journeys and lives into the story. This ritual returns us to spiritual center.
If Christians can celebrate a Seder meal in those ways then so we should for it opens us to greater understandings and deeper experiences. If we hear echoes of Jesus’ words for us to remember him in the story, then let our hearts be open to ways the Exodus journey might illuminate those words.
Don’t Treat Conservatives Like Apostates
Noam Neusner
Some on the Jewish left ostentatiously make room on their Seder plates for an orange as an act of feminist assertion. But would they make room for Jews for Palin? I doubt it.
The incivility in our communal debate is best summarized by a comment I get virtually every time I speak publicly: Why is a nice Jewish boy working for the Republicans? Funny, yes. But also uncivil — and profoundly so.
Consider what our civic life would look like if we directed similar derision at others based on their level of religious observance — which, unlike politics, actually has a lot to do with Judaism. Rarely does anyone ask: “What’s a nice Jewish girl like you doing eating meat and milk together?” Outside of a subsection of the observant world, it is generally considered inappropriate to tell fellow Jews that that their failure to observe kashrut makes them bad Jews.
As a community, we’re pretty good at tolerating diversity of religious observance — and even non-observance. But we’re far less accepting of difference when it comes to politics...I am sick of such incivility. Let’s have debates and discussions in our community about any and all matters of public policy, but leave Judaism out of them (at least until we are willing to accept what Judaism says about every aspect of our lives). The incivility of a raised voice — that’s one problem. The incivility of a closed mind — that’s far bigger.
Orange on the Seder Plate
Eric Schwitzgebel
The first time I saw an orange on the Seder plate, I was told this story about it: A woman was studying to become a rabbi. An orthodox rabbi told her that a woman belongs on the bima (pulpit) like an orange belongs on the Seder plate! When she became a rabbi, she put an orange on the plate.
A wonderful story! The orange on the Seder plate is wild, defiant, overturning the rules, the beginning of a new tradition to celebrate gender equality.
Does it matter if it's true?
The true story is more complicated. Dartmouth Jewish Studies professor Susannah Heschel was speaking to a Jewish group at Oberlin College. The students had written a story in which a young girl asks a rabbi what room there is for lesbians in Judaism, and the rabbi rises in anger, shouting, "There's as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the Seder plate!" Heschel, inspired by the story, but not wanting to put anything as unkosher as leavened bread on the Seder plate, put an orange on her family's Seder plate the next year.
In the second story, the orange is not a wild act of defiance but already a compromise. The shouting rabbi is not an actual person but only an imagined, simplified foe.
It matters that it's not true. From the two stories of the orange, we learn what I regard as the central lesson of Reform Judiasm, that myths are cultural inventions built to suit the values of their day, idealizations and simplifications, that they change as our values change, but also that there's only so much change that is possible in a tradition-governed institution, which is necessarily a compromise between past and present. An orange can be considered, but not a crust of bread.
The Orange on the Seder Plate
Alexandra Silver
The Passover seder is laden with symbols, many of which — like the bitter herbs (horseradish) that represent the bitterness of enslavement and the vegetable (usually parsley) that's dipped in saltwater to remind us of the tears of slaves — are found on the seder plate. In recent decades, there's been a new food on many a progressive platter: an orange.
Some may consider the orange a symbol of women's rights, derived from a man supposedly telling Professor Susannah Heschel that "a woman belongs on the bimah [in a leadership position in the congregation, or reading from the Torah] as much as an orange belongs on the seder plate." But Heschel herself has said that no such exchange took place, and the orange has a different meaning. Reflecting on when she added the orange to her seder plate in the 1980s, she says it was to be eaten "as a gesture of solidarity with Jewish lesbians and gay men, and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community," including widows. The seeds, symbolizing homophobia, were to be spat out. Bottom line: There's room for more symbols on the seder plate — and room for more participants around the seder table.
The REAL story of the Orange on the Seder Plate
Anita Silvert
Have you heard about putting an orange on the Seder Plate? Even if you have, I'm sure it's not the true story of how it came to be, so to do my part to put rumors to rest, I present you here with the real story of why people put an orange on the Seder plate.
It started with Dr. Susannah Heschel. The story you may have heard goes something like this: After a lecture given in Miami Beach, a man (usually Orthodox) stood up and angrily denounced feminism, saying that a woman belongs on a bima (pulpit) the way an orange belongs on a Seder plate. To support women's rightful place in Jewish life, people put an orange on their Passover tables.
It's a powerful story. And it's absolutely false. It never happened.
Heshchel herself tells the story of the genesis of this new ritual in the 2003 book, The Women's Passover Companion (JPL). It all started with a story from Oberlin College in the early 1980's. Heschel was speaking at the Hillel, and while there, she came across a haggadah written by some Oberlin students to bring a feminist voice into the holiday. In it, a story is told about a young girl who asks a Rebbe what room there is in Judaism for a lesbian. The Rebbe rises in anger and shouts, "There's as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate."
Though Heschel was inspired by the idea behind the story, she couldn't follow it literally. Besides the fact that it would make everything-the dish, the table, the meal, the house-unkosher for Passover, it carried a message that lesbians were a violation of Judaism itself, that these women were infecting the community with something impure.
So, the next year, Heschel put an orange on the family seder plate, "I chose an orange because it suggests the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life."
The symbolism grew to include people who feel marginalized from the Jewish community: the widow, the orphan, women's issues in general, but solidarity with the gay and lesbian Jewish community was at the core. It wasn't a navel orange; it had to have seeds to symbolize rebirth, renewal. And spitting out the seeds reminds us to spit out the hatred and ostracization of homosexuals in our community, and others who feel prejudice's sting. The orange is segmented, not fragmented. Our community has discrete segments, but they form a whole. The symbolism of the orange may have expanded, but its origins are clearly from a desire to liberate an entire segment of our community from their painful mitzrayim-narrow place.
Passover is a holiday of liberation, and in thanking God for our own national liberation, we must also take notice of those around us who are not free, but still in chains either seen or felt. There are so many Haggadot on the market today. Each has a different perspective, perhaps, but each tells the same story. There was a people enslaved by others, and they were freed with God's outstretched arm. But God didn't act alone. God needed human partners to make the liberation a reality. Who are we reaching out to today? Who needs that outstretched arm and open hand? And what new symbols or rituals can you bring into your Seder to deepen the meaning of this most fundamental gathering?
There are many beautiful colors in our community, and the orange reminds us to keep our hearts and hands open. And for this year, may you reach out to someone new, may you sit at a full table, may your songs and your wine be sweet, and may your Passover be filled with love and joy.