Seder Plate, A Poetic Introduction

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In the ancient story, the people groan in bondage, but are too caught up in suffering to respond to freedom's call, too traumatized to touch the open spaces in themselves which, however minute or contracted, can never be completely quashed.

This freedom story seems to be among our core narratives as human beings. How do boundaries and flow, fences and open fields, consonants and vowels, synergize to produce meaning and the possibility of agency? How does the way we hold ourselves within connect with the ways we are held, with the ways our ancestors have been held, and with how we and our children hold and flow into the future? And what does haggadah, “the telling,” have to do with our freedom?

The seder, the ritual meal into which the haggadah is woven, marks the beginning of our yearly Jewish freedom journey. Last year, at 4 a.m. on a Monday morning just before Passover—the Monday after a day of great public marches, when many young people's voices surged forth from their hearts like a mighty stream, declaring their commitment to sanity, to securing a future of freedom to live and work and grow, for themselves and for future generations—a series of poems emerged. As I contemplated the objects that would be placed on the seder plate, symbolic of burgeoning life and the possibility of freedom to know, to love, to serve, they began to speak in new and surprising voices.

The haroset, sweet and nutty; the karpas and hazeret, spring greens both sweet and bitter; the stinging maror and the zeroa, recalling the roasted pascal shank bone; and two round symbols, the betzah or roasted egg, and the orange, a recent addition to the ancient plate, inviting all those who have felt outside the pale to join in the festive freedom meal—all these call to us, making the story immediate, sensory-rich, digestible. They beg us to tell the ancient story, not only as if we had been there, but as if they—the ancient Israelites and the rabbis who crafted their tale for telling and re-telling—are here, now, seeing backward with our eyes, eating, drinking, and blessing alongside us.

May our Passover observances this year open a new road, a clear path, an open space that holds in each day, through each breath, the possibility of healing, of rebirth, and of joy.

Seder Plate….
Pesach’s blue plate
special, a strange
and yet familiar
gathering of ingredients,
recipe for remembrance,
symbols of celebration,
subject of cerebration,
centerpiece of our
meal of liberation….

Haroset (apples, cinnamon and wine)
Our taste buds
are confused. Spiced
and wine-soaked,
the sweet fruit,
riches of the
earthly garden
with which we
have been entrusted,
chopped and crushed,
cements the bricks
of our forgetfulness.
Betraying nature, we
betray our own
true natures—build
Pharaoh’s palaces and
storehouses, prisons for
Earth’s bounty, monuments
to greed, mortared with
forgetfulness and ignorance.
How did we
agreed to this
betrayal? How are
we complicit in
this intolerable injustice?

Karpas, Hazeret (sweet and bitter greens)
Spring greens tantalize
with new life
yet taste bitter
when we have
forgotten how to
love, how to
nourish, how to
protect the birth
and growth given
us to nurture.
Then newness, joy
and bitterness, mingle
in one mouthful,
blessed and rueful,
chewed and seasoned
with remorseful tears.

Maror (bitter herbs)
Fiery root sears
the knowing of
how far we
have strayed from
Truth into our
very breath, like
a dry khamsin,
hot desert wind
filling nostrils, throats
with dust and
despair. How
many years, how
many incarnations before
we recognize the
thrall that binds
us all, master
and slave, in
the tight fist
of bondage? How
many millennia before
we will perceive
why we came
and what it
means to serve?

Zeroa (roasted lamb shank)
It begins in
the bones, a
glimmer of freedom,
a deep groan—
where have we
been? In what
dark cave immured?
Only when the
darkest of darks
descends do we
begin to know
our own souls’
blindness. Only then,
forced at last
to kill and
burn and gnaw
to the bone
the false gods
we have worshipped
do we begin
to taste the
savor of truth,
lost long ago—
if ever known.
Only when we
have eaten the
flesh of the
outstretched forearm, God’s
shank, does the
journey home begin.

Betzah (roasted egg)
Egg, round, white,
like the pregnant
moon of spring,
swelling full before
our delighted eyes,
pointing us toward
the possible, the
dreamed-for, prayed-
for newness, always
present, just behind
the veil, just
beneath the shell.

Is it greed
or fear or
soul’s deep grief
that compel us
to roast this
seed, to cook
the unborn, before
its growth and
birthing can occur?

Orange
Another round of
possibility, this time
not gestation, but
the fruit, juicy,
sweet and tart,
inviting all: Let
all who are
hungry come and
eat! All who
seek life’s fullness,
all who long
for the circle’s
wholeness! Together let’s
circumambulate the periphery
of this pregnant
space, upwelling with
the holiness of
“between,” Oneness arising
from the midst
of our colorful
assemblage, ever expanding
to include another
and another. We
celebrate this seventh
ingredient in our
seder soup—the
flavor that at
last completes Creation.