Orange on the Seder Plate
Tapuz v’Ko’kos – The Orange
Why do we have an orange on the Seder Plate?
Speaker 1: In our own day as in the ancient days of our tradition, an event becomes a story, a story is woven with new legends, and the legends lead the path into new teachings. So it is with the orange on the Seder plate.
Speaker 2: To begin with in the early 1980’s, while speaking at Oberlin College Hillel, Susannah Heschel was introduced to an early feminist Haggadah that suggested adding a crust of bread on the Seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians (there's as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the Seder plate). Heschel felt that to put bread on the Seder plate would be to accept that Jewish lesbians and gay men violate Judaism like chametz violates Passover. So, at her next Seder, she chose an orange as a symbol of inclusion of gays and lesbians and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community.
Speaker 3: Heschel offered the orange as a symbol of the fruitfulness for all Jews representing lesbians and gay men and their contributions as active members in Jewish life. In addition, each orange segment had a few seeds that had to be spit out – a gesture of spitting out, repudiating the homophobia of Judaism.
Speaker 4: While lecturing, Heschel often mentioned her custom as one of many feminist rituals that have been developed in the last twenty years. She writes, "Somehow, though, the typical patriarchal maneuver occurred: my idea of an orange and my intention of affirming lesbians and gay men were transformed. Now the story circulates that a MAN said to me that a woman belongs on the bimah as an orange on the Seder plate. A woman's words are attributed to a man, and the affirmation of lesbians and gay men is erased. Isn't that precisely what's happened over the centuries to women's ideas?"
Speaker 5: We place an orange on our Seder plate to symbolize the affirmation of lesbians and gay men, and to ensure we continue to cherish that growth of Judaism. Tonight all the excluded of our people – lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender, women, Jews by choice –and all who have felt left out – take their full and rightful place in shaping the future of our people and traditions by placing the orange on theSeder plate.
Speaker 6: So why an orange? Because the orange carries within itself the seeds of its own rebirth. So have gay men and lesbians, bisexuals, women, Jews by choice within Judaism given birth to their own inclusion.
Speaker 7: Also because an orange provides both food and drink – it alone could sustain life for quite some time. So have queer Jews and others on the outskirts of the tradition had, at times, to sustain themselves until others understood and chose to welcome and include instead of turning away.
Speaker 8: This year we’ll do more than let the orange sit upon the Seder plate as a silent symbol, unconsumed. Tonight we will say the blessing and taste the sweetness of our orange and use it to add flavor to our Charoset to remind us that we are all a part of the mortar that binds our people. Take note how the flavor of our Charoset changes when we are able to taste the sweetness of integration.
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