The Orange on the Seder Plate
The Passover Seder had been going on for an hour. Sarah and Rebecca’s father had just begun reciting the blessing over the first cup of wine. Sarah and her sister, Rebecca, sat on either side of him. Sarah, the oldest, adored her father. And, like her father she loved Passover. As the father completed the blessing with his deep melodic voice, he signaled to Rebecca to begin reading a passage from the Haggada, the traditional prayer book of Passover. Rebecca began, “ In every generation we must see ourselves as if we personally were liberated from Egypt.” Listening intently to her sister’s words, Sarah immediately felt a shiver run up her spine. She was again about to play the part of her ancestors and, like her, all over the world Jews were preparing to mentally transport themselves back into bondage, longing for freedom, as they had been thousands of years ago.
Rebecca’s spine, however, had not shivered from the words she had just read, although she had felt an equally strong slow rumbling in her stomach. An hour had already passed and they had not even started reading the Story of Passover. Were they ever going to eat? Rebecca looked across the table and saw someone else who looked as though he were wondering the same thing. Her Grandfather had contorted his usual frown into something resembling what one might look like after sucking lemon juice. He had slumped into his seat so far that his famously large ears were touching his shoulders, and although he was rocking back and forth he kept his eyes glued to the Haggada in front of him, determined to remain focused on his hunger and discontent. “When d’we eat?” he said out of his pursed lips in an attempted whisper. But this attempt had failed, since his hearing aids prevented him from ever being fully aware of the volume of his voice. So instead, “When d’we eat?” bellowed across the table and warranted an embarrassed grin from his wife and a warm reception of giggles from the restless cousins.
Rebecca and Sarah quickly looked to see the reaction of their father. But he hadn’t seemed to notice, or just didn’t want to break the rhythm of the Seder. His eyes were wide and excited and his body swayed as he read the prayers. Rebecca began to study her father’s face. He was a middle-aged man, although he didn’t look it. Besides his slowly thinning hair and the few wrinkles at the corners of his eyes from years of hardy laughing, he looked exactly the same as he had in pictures taken twenty years before. As much as Rebecca loved her farther she never shared his passion for religion. She loved the intellectual aspects of Judaism, its biblical teachings, the philosophy behind the traditions, but not its spirituality. That she left to her father and to Sarah.
Sarah and Rebecca’s mother, on the other hand, had a passion for Jewish feminism, which is why both Rebecca and her sister were named after Jewish heroines. Their mother believed that a woman’s place in religion should change along with the times and reflect woman’s increasing power. Their mother took every absence of a female figure in a prayer or story as a personal insult. Thus, she forced the Seder to be twice as long, making sure to include the roles of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah in the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If a blessing was to be said over Elijah’s cup she insisted a blessing be said over Miriam’s cup as well. In fact, it was their mother’s feminist additions to the Seder that started the argument of the evening.
At her father’s request Sarah stood up and began explaining the significance of each of the symbolic items on the Seder plate. “The Karpas, or greens,” she said, “symbolizes Spring and rebirth; the shank bone represents the sacrifice of the lamb and the lamb’s blood placed in the doorways of the…”
“Where is my orange?!” their mother interrupted. “What?” her father asked. “My orange, Dear, I placed it on the Seder plate just before dinner.”
“Oh, I moved it.”
“You moved it?” She looked surprised and hurt, her large lovely smile had straitened and thinned. “I didn’t know what it was doing there,” the father said, shrugging. “ So I moved it. Can we please return the Seder?” There was a hint of irritation in his voice.
“Not without the orange on the Sader plate!” The mother said.
“What’s all tumalt?” the grandfather bellowed across the table again, this time making his low rumbling Yiddish accent very clear.
“Mom’s got this thing about an orange on the Seder plate,” Rebecca explained, “because of what that orthodox rabbi said when he heard that a girl was getting a Bat-Mitzvah”
“What did he say?” said one of the aunts curiously. “He said,” the mother piped up excited and angry, “seeing a girl on the pulpit is like having an orange on the Seder plate!”
“Well I don’t see how that’s so offensive,” said the father.
“It is offensive,” the mother rebuffed, “because he meant that a woman leading a congregation would be just as ridiculous as an orange on a Seder plate! So I put out an orange to show that neither is ridiculous.” “All right, we’ll do it tomorrow night; can we please continue with the Seder” the father said, motioning Sarah to continue. Sarah, who had been abruptly pulled out of her role-playing trance, could not continue without voicing her own opinion on the matter.
“Well, I don’t think its right” she said. “Oy vay,” responded her exasperated father.
“The Seder is about celebrating freedom, not showing our dislike for some rabbi we’ve never met.”
“Uhh.. Sweetheart,” her father said, “let’s not get into…”
“And,” Rebecca interrupted, ‘how is putting an orange on a Seder plate not celebrating freedom? Mom is celebrating the liberation of women.”
“Maybe,” said Sarah, “but it’s showing anger towards a particular person, and I don’t think that there is a place for that in the Seder.” “We show anger towards Pharaoh, and other oppressors of the Jewish people.” Said Rebecca. “ But the rabbi isn’t an evil oppressor, he’s just a an old rabbi holding onto tradition.” Sarah responded. “And it distracts from the meaning of the Seder.”“Well if it’s a distraction to you, we definitely shouldn’t have it” Rebecca said in blatant sarcasm. Sarah’s ears turned red.
Noticing her husband’s disappointed look at having lost control over the Seder and the rising animosity between her daughters, the mother knew she had to do something to end the distraction, but was too stubborn to give in. “Well… we have an orange in the kitchen!” she said and walked swiftly into the kitchen, brought back a big round orange, and placed it in the center of the Seder plate. “There,” she said sighing and wiping her hands on her apron as she sat down, “Now, we can continue.” Sarah looked down at the Seder plate that she had been explaining. It was once so organized and lovely, filled with soft primary colors and earth tones. Its calm appearance was now completely disrupted by a big, bright, eyesore of an orange. But she continued to explain each item around the new addition to the plate. She stood up and explained the greens and the shank bone again and then explained the salt water, the bitter herbs, the roasted egg, and the apple relish. Her father then continued with the ritual breaking of the matzah and, finally, the telling of the Passover story.
This was Sarah’s favorite part. In previous Seders she had lost herself completely the story. The Seder plate made the story even more realistic to her with its special effects. She would taste the bitter herbs and feel the bitterness of slavery; she would taste the salt water and feel tears of slavery; she would eat the apple relish and feel the thick texture of mortar; and by the end of the story she would feel as refreshed and reborn as the greens. But she could not feel the orange. So she resented it being there. She glared over the Seder plate at her sister. Rebecca had long curly brown hair, large green eyes, and dark skin. If anyone at the table looked as though they may have been in Egypt at the time of the Exodus, Rebecca did. Sarah had fair skin and straight brown hair and never really considered herself pretty. Rebecca was the pretty one. Sarah was angry with her sister arguing in favor of the orange. She could understand why her mother did- her mother wanted to amend every tradition in order to celebrate women. But Rebecca understood the importance of the traditions; She knew the symbolism as well as Sarah, she did not need Sarah to explain the items on the Seder plate to her. Rebecca was not interested in feminism and still she wanted the orange! Sarah stared hard at Rebecca hoping that she would look up and notice that she was mad. When Rebecca did not look up, Sarah started to imagine that her sister’s head getting larger. It grew taller and wider so that it filled the space between their father’s head and their uncle’s head on the other side of Rebecca. Sarah’s imagination made her sister’s head grow rounder. Her dark skin had turned a yellowish brown- almost orange -and her curly brown hair seemed to block out the background. She had become an orange. An orange surrounded by darkness. The darkness of the angle of death. And Sarah began to hate this bulbous orange object growing larger and larger across from her. She started itching to get rid of it. To hit it or smash it. She started to image throwing it into the endless dark background so that it might fall forever and disappear, or maybe hit something and splatter that darkness with orange juice.
Rebecca had been staring intently at her Haggada, every once and awhile sweeping her hair out of her face. She knew her sister was watching her. She felt it. But she would not look back. She did not want to give in. She knew once she looked her sister in her face she would be baited into apologizing, and she did not want to do that. She felt she had a right to her opinion and she intended to keep it. So what if Sarah was the older sister. Why was tradition so important to her anyway? She felt Sarah’s eyes burning into her forehead. She wanted her to stop looking, she willed Sarah to stop looking. Rebecca would not look up! She would not! She looked up. Sarah’s eyes were drilling into her. Rebecca looked back down at her Haggada. Was Sarah really that mad?
The Seder continued. The youngest cousin got up from her seat and began to read the traditional Four Questions: “Why is this night different from all others?” Across the table their restless grandfather said, in another failed whisper, “All I’m saying is that I need some food and some sleep.” Sarah and Rebecca, for their own separate reasons, agreed with him.
Rebecca’s spine, however, had not shivered from the words she had just read, although she had felt an equally strong slow rumbling in her stomach. An hour had already passed and they had not even started reading the Story of Passover. Were they ever going to eat? Rebecca looked across the table and saw someone else who looked as though he were wondering the same thing. Her Grandfather had contorted his usual frown into something resembling what one might look like after sucking lemon juice. He had slumped into his seat so far that his famously large ears were touching his shoulders, and although he was rocking back and forth he kept his eyes glued to the Haggada in front of him, determined to remain focused on his hunger and discontent. “When d’we eat?” he said out of his pursed lips in an attempted whisper. But this attempt had failed, since his hearing aids prevented him from ever being fully aware of the volume of his voice. So instead, “When d’we eat?” bellowed across the table and warranted an embarrassed grin from his wife and a warm reception of giggles from the restless cousins.
Rebecca and Sarah quickly looked to see the reaction of their father. But he hadn’t seemed to notice, or just didn’t want to break the rhythm of the Seder. His eyes were wide and excited and his body swayed as he read the prayers. Rebecca began to study her father’s face. He was a middle-aged man, although he didn’t look it. Besides his slowly thinning hair and the few wrinkles at the corners of his eyes from years of hardy laughing, he looked exactly the same as he had in pictures taken twenty years before. As much as Rebecca loved her farther she never shared his passion for religion. She loved the intellectual aspects of Judaism, its biblical teachings, the philosophy behind the traditions, but not its spirituality. That she left to her father and to Sarah.
Sarah and Rebecca’s mother, on the other hand, had a passion for Jewish feminism, which is why both Rebecca and her sister were named after Jewish heroines. Their mother believed that a woman’s place in religion should change along with the times and reflect woman’s increasing power. Their mother took every absence of a female figure in a prayer or story as a personal insult. Thus, she forced the Seder to be twice as long, making sure to include the roles of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah in the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If a blessing was to be said over Elijah’s cup she insisted a blessing be said over Miriam’s cup as well. In fact, it was their mother’s feminist additions to the Seder that started the argument of the evening.
At her father’s request Sarah stood up and began explaining the significance of each of the symbolic items on the Seder plate. “The Karpas, or greens,” she said, “symbolizes Spring and rebirth; the shank bone represents the sacrifice of the lamb and the lamb’s blood placed in the doorways of the…”
“Where is my orange?!” their mother interrupted. “What?” her father asked. “My orange, Dear, I placed it on the Seder plate just before dinner.”
“Oh, I moved it.”
“You moved it?” She looked surprised and hurt, her large lovely smile had straitened and thinned. “I didn’t know what it was doing there,” the father said, shrugging. “ So I moved it. Can we please return the Seder?” There was a hint of irritation in his voice.
“Not without the orange on the Sader plate!” The mother said.
“What’s all tumalt?” the grandfather bellowed across the table again, this time making his low rumbling Yiddish accent very clear.
“Mom’s got this thing about an orange on the Seder plate,” Rebecca explained, “because of what that orthodox rabbi said when he heard that a girl was getting a Bat-Mitzvah”
“What did he say?” said one of the aunts curiously. “He said,” the mother piped up excited and angry, “seeing a girl on the pulpit is like having an orange on the Seder plate!”
“Well I don’t see how that’s so offensive,” said the father.
“It is offensive,” the mother rebuffed, “because he meant that a woman leading a congregation would be just as ridiculous as an orange on a Seder plate! So I put out an orange to show that neither is ridiculous.” “All right, we’ll do it tomorrow night; can we please continue with the Seder” the father said, motioning Sarah to continue. Sarah, who had been abruptly pulled out of her role-playing trance, could not continue without voicing her own opinion on the matter.
“Well, I don’t think its right” she said. “Oy vay,” responded her exasperated father.
“The Seder is about celebrating freedom, not showing our dislike for some rabbi we’ve never met.”
“Uhh.. Sweetheart,” her father said, “let’s not get into…”
“And,” Rebecca interrupted, ‘how is putting an orange on a Seder plate not celebrating freedom? Mom is celebrating the liberation of women.”
“Maybe,” said Sarah, “but it’s showing anger towards a particular person, and I don’t think that there is a place for that in the Seder.” “We show anger towards Pharaoh, and other oppressors of the Jewish people.” Said Rebecca. “ But the rabbi isn’t an evil oppressor, he’s just a an old rabbi holding onto tradition.” Sarah responded. “And it distracts from the meaning of the Seder.”“Well if it’s a distraction to you, we definitely shouldn’t have it” Rebecca said in blatant sarcasm. Sarah’s ears turned red.
Noticing her husband’s disappointed look at having lost control over the Seder and the rising animosity between her daughters, the mother knew she had to do something to end the distraction, but was too stubborn to give in. “Well… we have an orange in the kitchen!” she said and walked swiftly into the kitchen, brought back a big round orange, and placed it in the center of the Seder plate. “There,” she said sighing and wiping her hands on her apron as she sat down, “Now, we can continue.” Sarah looked down at the Seder plate that she had been explaining. It was once so organized and lovely, filled with soft primary colors and earth tones. Its calm appearance was now completely disrupted by a big, bright, eyesore of an orange. But she continued to explain each item around the new addition to the plate. She stood up and explained the greens and the shank bone again and then explained the salt water, the bitter herbs, the roasted egg, and the apple relish. Her father then continued with the ritual breaking of the matzah and, finally, the telling of the Passover story.
This was Sarah’s favorite part. In previous Seders she had lost herself completely the story. The Seder plate made the story even more realistic to her with its special effects. She would taste the bitter herbs and feel the bitterness of slavery; she would taste the salt water and feel tears of slavery; she would eat the apple relish and feel the thick texture of mortar; and by the end of the story she would feel as refreshed and reborn as the greens. But she could not feel the orange. So she resented it being there. She glared over the Seder plate at her sister. Rebecca had long curly brown hair, large green eyes, and dark skin. If anyone at the table looked as though they may have been in Egypt at the time of the Exodus, Rebecca did. Sarah had fair skin and straight brown hair and never really considered herself pretty. Rebecca was the pretty one. Sarah was angry with her sister arguing in favor of the orange. She could understand why her mother did- her mother wanted to amend every tradition in order to celebrate women. But Rebecca understood the importance of the traditions; She knew the symbolism as well as Sarah, she did not need Sarah to explain the items on the Seder plate to her. Rebecca was not interested in feminism and still she wanted the orange! Sarah stared hard at Rebecca hoping that she would look up and notice that she was mad. When Rebecca did not look up, Sarah started to imagine that her sister’s head getting larger. It grew taller and wider so that it filled the space between their father’s head and their uncle’s head on the other side of Rebecca. Sarah’s imagination made her sister’s head grow rounder. Her dark skin had turned a yellowish brown- almost orange -and her curly brown hair seemed to block out the background. She had become an orange. An orange surrounded by darkness. The darkness of the angle of death. And Sarah began to hate this bulbous orange object growing larger and larger across from her. She started itching to get rid of it. To hit it or smash it. She started to image throwing it into the endless dark background so that it might fall forever and disappear, or maybe hit something and splatter that darkness with orange juice.
Rebecca had been staring intently at her Haggada, every once and awhile sweeping her hair out of her face. She knew her sister was watching her. She felt it. But she would not look back. She did not want to give in. She knew once she looked her sister in her face she would be baited into apologizing, and she did not want to do that. She felt she had a right to her opinion and she intended to keep it. So what if Sarah was the older sister. Why was tradition so important to her anyway? She felt Sarah’s eyes burning into her forehead. She wanted her to stop looking, she willed Sarah to stop looking. Rebecca would not look up! She would not! She looked up. Sarah’s eyes were drilling into her. Rebecca looked back down at her Haggada. Was Sarah really that mad?
The Seder continued. The youngest cousin got up from her seat and began to read the traditional Four Questions: “Why is this night different from all others?” Across the table their restless grandfather said, in another failed whisper, “All I’m saying is that I need some food and some sleep.” Sarah and Rebecca, for their own separate reasons, agreed with him.