Tips for Jewish Living

Tips for Jewish Living is a new monthly column devoted to information to help with daily Jewish life, from practical issues like holiday preparation, food/recipes, and b’nai mitzvah to the spiritual. Let us know if there’s a topic you would like to see covered.

See the Archive of Tips.

Email us at: newsletter@tbieugene.org.

Orange You Glad I Asked? A Passover Tale

by Sabena Stark

Here is the story of a Passover orange. Why is this orange different from other oranges, you might ask? Because it's the orange belonging to scholar and feminist writer Susanna Heschel, daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. This object of citrus wonder began its journey as a piece of bread crust, not a generally welcome or attractive thing to find on the Pesach table. The crust was planted on the Seder plate as a symbol of the exclusion of lesbians and gays in traditional Judaism, a practice developed at feminist Seders held at Oberlin College. Susanna Heschel was introduced to this new custom while speaking at the college in the early 1980's.

Heschel replaced the crust with a modest tangerine; it would more appropriately fit on the plate next to other ceremonial foods and not shmutz up the table with not-kosher-for-Passover chometz. A tangerine was different, but it still belonged. Heschel said it symbolized the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gays are actively involved in the life of the Jewish community.

And, importantly, the tangerine had pits. Pits that Seder participants could spit out, as an enthusiastic rejection of homophobia.

How the tangerine morphed into an orange is a mystery. Maybe oranges were easier to find on the 15th of Nissan. Maybe its superior roundness and plumpness caused the orange to displace the lowly tangerine. No matter. The final transformation was the most dramatic.

The true "orange on the Seder plate" story vanished. Somehow, a sexist redaction replaced the actual story with this one: Susanna Heschel was speaking in front of a Miami congregation, when an elderly male rabbi stood up and interrupted her speech with the following invective: A woman belongs on the Bimah like an orange on a Seder plate!

Of course, this never happened. But somehow the story circulated and stuck. And that's how this new ritual is frequently introduced at progressive Seders around the country.

Heschel, describing this transformation, said, "...the typical patriarchal maneuver occurred...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?”

Well, let it be said that at my table, the Seder orange will be attributed to Professor Heschel and the women of Oberlin, as it should be, in honor of lesbians and gays. And that, in my congregation, every orange is welcome.

May we all feast in peace and freedom.