On The Seder Plate | Passover haggadah by Serena Jake

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Tirosch Schneider (he/they) is an NYC-based actor, writer, teacher, and cartographer, except he is not a cartographer. They also lead phone-banks for socialist candidates in NYC, and have organized with Sunrise NYC and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

A brief description of the elements of the Seder Plate and their respective symbolisms, which Werner Herzog famously called “too obvious”:

A sprig of parsley, to represent the coming of spring, but also how hard it is to use fresh herbs before they go bad, which is why I’ve stopped buying them and resort to dried oregano for everything. Life is fleeting.

Saltwater - to represent the tears Jews shed when they were slaves in Egypt, and also the saltwater-based home remedies that our parents made us gargle any time we had a canker sore. Dip the parsley into the water and eat it, because every chef knows that parsley is a delicious meal on its own, but is even better dipped in salty water.

A hard boiled egg - to symbolize the festival offerings brought to the holy temple on Passover. If you’d like, you can present it to someone at the table, and they can respond, “I prefer scrambled.” For a vegan Seder plate, can be switched out with a roasted beet, a boiled carrot, a jar of oat milk, or a can of Amy’s low-fat refried beans.

Maror - the bitter herb, to represent the suffering that the Jews endured, in case we forgot after the salt water. Everyone at the table must eat a spoonful of plain horseradish if they want to win the “horseradish challenge” at the end of the night (no further explanation was provided in the Torah).

Charoset - a sweet pasty mixture of apple and nuts, representing the bricks and mortar used to build the pyramids (which was rarely made from apples). Can be replaced with a Kind bar or a bowl of Apple Jacks, but those are harder to spread on matzoh. Do not eat real mortar, calk, or wet cement (Book of Preschool 5:21). For a fun treat, make Charoset Spice Lattes and serve them in the highly controversial “Good Pesach” Starbucks cups.

A lamb shank, to symbolize the sacrificial lambs brought to the temple, and the bones used to write “Go Ask My Neighbor” on Jews’ doors when playing “Kitty Wants a Firstborn.” Most people don’t know that all quills were made from lamb bone in those days, so all books were written in 68 size font. For a fun twist, tell all the kids at the table that it’s a dinosaur bone, and replace the second half of the Haggadah with “The Magic Treehouse: Dinosaurs Before Dark.”

A single Lego - to represent a brick, and the time my family went to Legoland and called it “a religious experience”

A DVD of Rugrats in Paris - to represent the importance of Jewish representation, and also to remember the suffering we went though trying to clean a scratched DVD with our shirts.

A Werther’s Original hard candy - to represent the importance of home / large tote bags (can be replaced with any hard candy, as long as it is slightly old and therefore chewy on the sides)

A bottle of very strong perfume - to represent joy. At the end of the night, the children get to search the house and guess which older relative the scent is coming from.

Chocolate coins - these are technically for Hanukkah, but Oma found some at CVS and threw them in.

A stationary bicycle - to represent the harvest

Finally, matzoh - to symbolize the time Harold forgot to bring yeast to the desert gathering, and instead brought more plates, which Muriel had already brought plenty of, and they argued about it for forty years. If you pour apple juice on it, you can call it Mott’s matzoh (will be soggy and inedible), if you pour on green tea on it, you can call it Matcha Matzoh (will be soggy and inedible but caffeinated), and if you’re a fun uncle, you can say “I brought lotsa matzoh!” and hold up 20 boxes of matzoh, which the children will be forced to eat at snack time until at least next Passover.

haggadah Section: Karpas

Source: Tirosh Schneider