The Holiday of Bitter Herbs

Every seder we host is just a little bit different. The menu changes and so does the haggadah. We figure out new ways to tell the age-old story of how the Jews came out of Egypt.

My husband, who should probably have been a rabbi, concocted the most wonderful haggadah using bits and pieces from lots of places. Much of it came from The Velveteen Rabbi’s Haggadah for Pesach, assembled originally by Rachel Barenblat at Williams College. He had interspersed readings about Darfur and miscellaneous other materials. In addition, he sent out homework ahead of time, including questions like What has liberated you in the past year? and What is an example of a current-day plague?

Our guests included several Catholics, several not-so-believing Jews, and the rest of us for a toal of 9. Two of them were grad students from GW, referred to us by the Hillel group there.

As we sat down to begin, for once I knew our dinner of lamb shanks would only get more tender if we took a while with the first half of the seder. That is never a problem for my husband, who would be happy to discuss all night.

Our seder plate included a couple of new things this year:
– An orange inspired by a criticism of Jewish feminism “Women belong on the bimah (pulpit) like oranges belong on the seder plate.” Susannah Heschel subsequently wrote: “An orange is suggestive of the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life.”
– An olive as an embodied prayer for peace, in the Middle East and every place where war destroys live, hopes, and the freedoms we celebrate.

I always like the part of the seder when we use our pinky to put drops of wine on our plate to symbolize the 10 plagues: blood, frogs, lice, insect swarms, cattle plague, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and the death of the first-born. This year we added 10 additional drops for horrors currently plaguing Darfur: rape, torture, looting, destruction of property, displacement, separation of families, loss of community, starvation, disease, and murder.

We read the following poem by Marge Piercy before we ate our hard-boiled eggs, symbolizing the new life of springtime:

Season of the Egg

It’s the season of the egg,
older than any named creed:
that perfect shape that signs
a pregnant woman, the moon

slightly compressed, as if
a great serpent held it
in its opened mouth
to carry or to eat.

Eggs smell funky
slipped from under
the hen’s breast, hotter
than our blood.

Christians paint them;
we roast them. The only
time in the whirling year
I ever eat roasted egg:

a campfire flavor, bit
burnt, reeking of haste
like the matzoh there was no
time to let rise.

We like our eggs honest,
brown. Outside my window
the chickadees choose partners
to lay tiny round eggs.

The egg of the world cracks
raggedly open and the wet
scraggly chick of northern
spring emerges gaunt, dripping.

Soon it will preen its green
feathers, so it will grow
fat and strong, its wings
blue and binding.

Tonight we dip the egg in salt
water like bowls of tears.
Elijah comes with the fierce
early spring bringing prophecy

that cracks open the head
swollen with importance.
Every day there is more work
to do and stronger light.

Of all the Passover foods, the horseradish ranks right at the top for me. It reminds us of the bitterness of bondage. I was honored to share my recipe (or I should say Joan Nathan’s recipe) with our Rabbi Toby this year who reported: “It rocked.” So if you are so inclined, here it is:

1 lb. horseradish root, peeled and cut into inch-long pieces
1 red beet, peeled and quartered
½ cup white vinegar
1/4 cup sugar

Put all ingredients in the bowl of the food processor and grind until fine. Take care as you open the processor because the fumes will surely clear out your sinuses and may knock you over!

The Passover of 2008, which seems to have gotten separated from Easter this year, is officially upon us. For 8 days we avoid bread, flour, even rice, as we mark the exodus of the Jews from Egypt thousands of years ago.