Why is there an orange on the Seder Plate?

In our own day as in the ancient days of our tradition, an event becomes a story, a story is woven with new legends, and the legends lead the path into new teahings. So it is with the orange on the Seder Plate.  Ours is a dynamic religion growing and developing.

To begin with, a woman told a rabbi of the old tradition that she wanted to become a Rabbi.  He answered, " A woman has no more business being on the Bimah than an orange does being on the Seder Plate."But our people are no longer willing to accept such proclamations. So ever since that day, we place an orange on the Seder table, for it belongs there as a symbol of growth and transformatin a symbol of the place of women in the future of Judaism. But why an orange? Because the orange carries within itself the seeds of its own rebirth.  When we went forth from te Narrow Place, Mitzrayim, the Jewish people passed through a narrow birth canal and broke the waters of the Red Sea, and so was born into the world.  In our generation, the Jewish people is again giving birth to itself. For the first time, women are sharing equally with men in bringing this new birth to its fruition. For the first time, gay men and lesbians have themselves come out of the Narrow Closed-in closet to shar in shaping the future of Judaism. So we must for the first time bring to the Seder plate a fruit that carries within the seeds of its own rebirth. Tonight all the previously excluded of our people -- lesbians, and gays, women and converts, take their place in shaping the future of our people.  Tonight we place the orange on the Seder Plate.


haggadah Section: -- Four Questions