Seder Plate Answer

03/30/2021

A. A group of rabbis and others representing The Jewish Working Group to End The New Jim Crow suggested the addition of a padlock and a key to call attention to the problem of mass incarceration in America.

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B. Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael, Spiritual Arts Director of ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, suggested the addition of an artichoke to symbolize the issue of intermarriage within the Jewish community. She notes that the artichoke is complex, with its petals, thistle and heart, and thus represents the diversity of the Jewish people. But she also says that the thorny bristles reflect the fact that “the Jewish people have been thorny about” the issue of interfaith marriage.

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C. A number of years ago, Rabbi Wesley Gardenswartz, senior rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Newton, Massachusetts, had seen a sign in a local CVS drug store asking people to buy bags of cashews for U.S. troops who were serving in Iraq. The Rabbi learned that the salty nuts were considered a good way to keep the service men and women hydrated in the dry dessert. The Rabbi went on to urge his congregants to include cashews on their seder plates to honor the soldiers serving in Iraq.

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D. In 2015, the world was saddened to see a photograph of a young Syrian boy who had drowned off the coast of Turkey (along with his mother and brother) as their family attempted to escape the civil war in Syria. The father spoke of how he had given his sons bananas every day despite the difficulty of obtaining this fruit in war-torn Syria, in an attempt to make their lives just a bit sweeter. In response to this story, Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom in Vancouver, British Columbia suggested the placing of a banana on the seder plate to remind us of the plight of refugees world-wide.

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