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Flip it! Next, flip the eggplant over and cook with a lid on the pan on for
by Federal RC
The Orange
As Cultural Jews, we aim to engage with the traditions in a meaningful way that reflects our values, and we believe that the orange on the Seder plate is a beautiful way to manifest said values.
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I owe so much to Rabbi Susannah Heschel.
All day every day, Jews are Ginding new ways to adapt to the traditional aspects of our religion, in an attempt to rid the age-old patriarchy found in some features of Judaism, and bring in new ways of incorporating those marginalised from our community. The best Seder, in my opinion, blends ancient tradition and modernity. We should encourage participants and family to think about the Jewish peoples’ redemption from slavery, but also about the kinds of oppression both Jews and others still experience.
When Rabbi Susannah Heschel was asked to speak on a panel at Oberlin college during Pesach in the early 1980’s, she came across the feminist tradition of placing crumbs of chametz on ones Seder plate as a sign of solidarity with Jewish women contradicting a Rabbetzin’s pronouncement that, “there’s as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the Seder plate.”
Although a great gesture, adding bread to a Seder plate would render everything chametz- consequentially ending Pesach for a religious family. In this new way, the compromise shown in placement of an orange on the Seder plate rather than bread, reGlects a microcosm of my Judaism; as someone who celebrates my own interpretation of Judaism, whilst still maintaining respect for every other individual’s interpretation within the community.
Instead of suggesting that the LGBTQI+ community was something forbidden, violating Judaism (like chametz during Pesach), an orange represents the fruitfulness for all Jews when the queer community are contributing and active members of OUR Jewish community. In addition, the seeds of the orange can be spit out, gesturing the refusal of homophobia within Judaism.
I urge everyone reading this to place a seventh item to your Seder plate, an orange.
“The orange is a metaphor to represent the idea that tradition changes and the world changes, we therefore constantly need to modernise tradition.” By Tomer B, Shavit Sydney
“At my Seder, we put an orange on the Seder plate. The orange is a new addition to the Seder plate, and it represents feminism and gender equality. It’s important to think about the bad things of the world today, like woman and men getting treated differently, as well as the bad things of the past, like the slavery of Jews!” Tal Levy, Ra’am Perth
Increasingly among progressive alternative Seders, there has been a growing addition of the orange to the Seder plate. It has long been rumoured that this practice stems from a Jewish feminist scholar, Susannah Heschel, including one on her Seder plate in the early 80’s as a act of rebellion in response to a man telling Heschel “a woman belongs on the bimah [prayer podium] like an orange belongs on the seder plate.”) However, despite this being a powerful statement about women's rightful place in Jewish life, this is not the case. The orange in fact originates from Oberlin College in the early 1980's when Heschel came across a Haggadah written by some 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 houseunkosher for Passover, it carried a message that lesbians were a violation of Judaism itself, that these women were infecting the community with something impure. Thus the orange on the Seder place was born symbolic of 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. Spitting out the seeds reminds us to spit out the hatred 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.
It therefore is ironic that the history of the orange, symbolic of recognising the voices of marginalised has largely been erased. Heschel in response to this rumour summarises this idea perfectly “Somehow... the typical patriarchal maneuver [has] 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?”. The erasure of marginalised voices has often meant that throughout history, women in the struggle to gain recognition have remained anonymous as was the case was the case for Mary Shelley when publishing “Frankenstein”. On this Virginia Woolf surmises “I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” Ironically, this too is misquoted and many of you may be more familiar with "For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." It’s unjust that those who contribute such incredible ideas to society received no credit based on archaic, systematic oppression. Similarly to the struggles of the Jews as the oppressed in Egypt, in modern society we must free the marginalised voices from unfair prejudice placed upon them. We must fight to give recognition to the disenfranchised voices, be constantly cognizant of the way we use our own voice to overpower smaller voices and to take moment to recognise our own automatic prejudice before dismissing the ideas of another. So that one day these voices belong in our society unlike an orange on the Seder plate.
A L I L’ C H I N U C H
Chinuch in Hebrew means education and we believe that Jews should never stop learning an questioning the world around them.
Sustainability, Environmentalism and Compassion
Every year at the Seder we sing Dayenu - “It would have been enough”. Traditionally, this song is about being grateful to God for all of the gifts he gave the Jewish people, such as taking them out of slavery, giving them the Torah and Shabbat. Had God only given one of the gifts, it would have still been enough.
However, we can look at this tune through a modern, humanist, Habo lens. In today’s world so many people seek to constantly increase their wealth and hoard more possessions, with little thought of the negative environmental consequences. Today’s fast fashion industry involves thousands of items of clothing being produced every minute through means of cheap, unethical, overseas labour. These masses of cheap clothing break within a few wears, and rather than sewing up the tears, we throw away the fabric to replace it with more cheaply, unethically produced clothes.
Nearly 60% of all clothing produced ends up in incinerators or landGills within a year of being made. It takes about 2,720 litres of water to produce just one cotton shirt. Australians throw out 6,000 kilograms of clothing textiles every 10 minutes. Before you opt to buy a new shirt from WestGield – head to your local thrift store, the Depop app, or raid your parents’ cupboard.
This concept of overproduction is similarly apparent in the meat, poultry, Gishing, dairy and egg industries, where these products are all incredibly mass produced. This results in ridiculous amounts of wastes alongside the unnecessary butchery of animals.
Judaism’s greatest leader, teacher, and prophet – Moses – was chosen to lead the Israelites out of Egypt because as a shepherd he showed great compassion to a lamb (Exodus Rabbah 2:2). We look to Moses as a major Jewish role model, and we must admire his philosophy of consideration toward animals and the concept that every living creature deserves to be treated with respect. Today, around seventy billion (70,000,000,000) animals are raised annually worldwide for slaughter. These are mainly on factory farms under very cruel conditions. Providing food and water for these animals and getting rid of their wastes additionally cause many environmental problems.
Animal-based agriculture contributes signiGicantly to climate change, deforestation, soil erosion, loss of biological diversity, and other environmental threats. We encourage every person to consider what food they are putting into bodies, where it has come from and the process it went through before it arrived on their plate. An easily achievable way to directly aid the world and embody the Jewish value “Tikkun Olam”, is to try a Glexitarian, vegetarian or vegan diet. We also encourage everyone to consider what materialistic items they choose spend their money on, which companies they are supporting, and who is beneGitting/at a loss from their purchase. Support ethical clothing companies who use sustainable methods of production, and raise awareness surrounding companies who elicit cheap, slave labour.
This Passover, we urge you to think about the message of “Dayenu” - “It would have been enough” – and consider what you will do to minimize your impact on our environment.
