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The Orange
Contributed by Chelsea Rothschild

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

The Orange

Reader: Many years ago, Susannah Heschel attended a feminist seder where bread was placed on the seder plate, a reaction to a rebbetzin who had claimed lesbians had no more place in Judaism than bread crusts have at a seder.

“Bread on the seder plate… renders everything chametz, and its symbolism suggests that being lesbian is transgressive, violating Judaism.”

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. She offered the orange as a symbol of the fruitfulness for all Jews when LGBTQ members are contributing and active participants 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.

“I felt that an orange was suggestive of something else: the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life.”

"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?"

-- Susannah Heschel

We peel the orange and everyone gets a slice.

Together, we recite: 

Barukh ata Adonai eloheinu melech ha’olam borei p’ri ha-eitz

Blessed are you, Lord our god, Ruler of the universe, who creates the fruit of the is a universal tree.

(we eat the orange slice)
haggadah Section: Koreich

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