Jewish Typologies of Food and the Seder Plate
Seth Ward
Some members of this congregation read my remarks about hamantaschen in the context of a case in which the Assistant Attorney General of
Colorado attempted to argue that the Purim confections were closer to Communion wafers than Christmas cookies. The following remarks are
based on a postscript to that article, in which I examined the typologies of various foods placed on the Seder table along similar lines. The model
I developed was similar to the model ascribed to Eliyahu Kitov below—although familiar from many treatments of the Seder Plate. The
hamantasch is not itself a mitzvah but it is similar to the status of some of the seder plate items at least in the sense that it is linked by common
practice with mitzvoth. I am grateful to several members of this congregation who made comments on my hamantasch paper and welcome any
comments on this essay.
Rabbinic literature is replete with comparisons and rankings
of various foods, and the process of determining the order of
the various elements of the Passover night service is what
gave the meal its name, Seder, which means the “order” or
“arrangement” of the rituals, the meal, and narratives that
must be recited.1 Nevertheless, discussion about the precise
organization of what we usually call the Seder Plate, the
ceremonial dish with the shankbone, egg, bitter herbs and
other foods set at the center of the Seder table, most likely
represents a typology developed only in the 15th or 16th
century. This essay will explore some of the reasons offered
for the various arrangements, and for items put on or left off
the Seder plate.
The Seder Plate foods recall Temple offerings; we might
expect that discussions about the Seder plate foods and their
arrangement would focus on Temple practice, perhaps the
role the item represented in the sacrificial procedure, when it
could be offered, the order of offerings, or who could eat it
according to purity status or lineage. Indeed, food hierarchies
are intrinsic to reports of most rituals connected with the
ancient Temple service. To take only one example, the
Mishnah states that “there are three stages of purifications in
regard to a leper, and three stages of purifications in regard to
one who gives birth” (Nega‘im 14:3).2 Each stage is
associated with a type of sacred food that may be eaten. On
the seventh day, after washing, the purified leper may eat
“second tithe” (ma‘ser),3 after sunset he may eat the “votive
offering” (teruma), and, after bringing the atonement
sacrifice, on the following day he could eat of the “whole” or
“peace offerings” (shelamim). The same stages apply to a
woman after childbirth.4 Although the passage is about stages
1
This paper was largely written around April 2002; it was
circulated to the East Denver Orthodox Congregation and has had
minor edits since then, but has never been published.
2
Translations of the Mishnah given here roughly follow Neusner,
The Mishnah: A New Translation, New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1988.
3
The text says only ma‘aser but ma‘aser sheni is understood.
4
For a perspective on the childbirth sacrifice from a second-
of purification, the result is that there is a definitive
order for eating sanctified offerings. Another type of
Temple food hierarchy concerned whether the foods
were considered sacred, holy, or “very holy,” and the
related issue of who could eat various sacrificial
offerings: some could be eaten by priests only, others
by priests and various family members, and others by
those who offered the animal, whether members of
priestly families or not. There are discussions about the
order in which various sacrifices could be offered, the
order and timeframes in which they were eaten, and so
forth.
Although the Seder reenacts the Passover Feast of
Temple times, the arrangement of the Seder Plate is not
usually explained on the basis of ancient Temple
practices, food hierarchies or orders. Although the
Seder service creates a sense of being present at the
Temple—and at the Exodus itself—the arrangement
Plate is more often explained in other ways, such as
convenience for the order in which the foods are eaten,
or reflecting the Mishnah text. Other explanations
suggest that the Plate provides a taxonomy of
involvement in mitzvot, at least in the way they are
understood by a number of modern expositors—or an
expression of Kabbalistic understanding of the
Godhead.
The Mishnah provides the foods to be brought to the
person celebrating the Passover. First he makes
Kiddush over wine, and then
[When] they bring him [the food], he dips the
lettuce5 before he comes to the breaking of the
bread. They brought him unleavened bread,
century non-Jewish source, writing about the situation in the
early first century, see my article “The Presentation of Jesus:
Jewish Perspectives on Luke 2:22-24.” Shofar, Winter 2003.
21-39.
5
Neusner: [in vinegar]; see discussion below.
lettuce, haroset and two cooked dishes—even though
haroset is not a religious obligation—R. El‘azar b.
S adoq says, “it is a religious obligation.” And in the
time of the Temple, they would bring before him the
carcass of the Passover offering (
).
(Pesahim 10:3; italics mine.)6
In the light of the discussion about the arrangement of the
seder plate, it should be noted that this passage makes no
mention of salt water or any other liquid into which the
vegetable is dipped. Maimonides understands that the dipped
item is any vegetable whatsoever, and that it is dipped into
haroset.7 Neusner, in his translation of the Mishnah, reads
“he dips the lettuce [in vinegar].” Moreover, in what is often
considered to be the best manuscript tradition—the
manuscripts of the Mishnah with Maimonides’ commentaries
consulted by Yosef Kafah for his edition of the latter—the
Mishnah makes no mention of “the two cooked dishes.”8
There is much to commend R. Kafah ’s reading. R. El‘azar
b. S adoq’s comment about the status of h aroset seems
well placed—immediately after h
Moreover, this reading does not have the Mishna refer to
“two cooked dishes” and to the Passover sacrifice, which
would be superfluous according to the usual understanding,
namely, that the “two cooked dishes” refer to the festive
offering (hagigah), and to the Passover offering. If it was
brought already as one of two cooked dishes, why bring it
again as gufo shel Pesah? Nevertheless, the traditional
version of the Mishnah seems to have been the guiding
principle in the arrangement of the seder plate.9
seder plate, with striking variations in foods, and in
traditional explanations, but no mention of the
arrangement. Similarly, there is no mention of the
arrangement on the plate by Maimonides, Abudarham,
or by Rabbi Joseph Karo, the author of the Shulhan
Arukh. A possible reason for this is that the Mishna
envisions these items set before the celebrant on a
table, not on a special plate as became the custom.
In his glosses to the Shulhan ‘Arukh, however, Rabbi
Moses Isserles (d. 1572) describes an arrangement by
which the items used first in the seder are placed
closest to the leader. Thus the karpas “green
vegetable” and salt water are nearest the leader, then
the matzah, then the maror “bitter herbs”; the items
were set up this way “in order not to pass over a
commandment.”11 This was the arrangement favored,
for example, by the late Moshe Feinstein,12 including
placing the matzah beyond the karpas and salt water,
and the maror and charoset beyond that. R. Feinstein’s
son wrote that his father’s justification for adopting R.
Isserles’ arrangement is that “one should not pass over
opportunities for performing” commandments.13 This
language is probably meant only to paraphrase R.
Isserles, but perhaps it is more suggestive: one should
not merely learn to avoid forgoing one mitzvah
because one is intent on performing another mitzvah,
but also to affirmatively seize the opportunity to
perform mitzvot as they present themselves.
The standard editions ascribe Isserles’ source to the
Maharil (Rabbi Jacob b. Moses Moellin, d. 1427),
Many authorities do not much discuss how the items are to
whose works were known to Rabbi Karo.
be arranged. Strikingly, this issue is not discussed in Rabbi
M. Kasher’s section on sidur ha-qe‘arah “the arrangement of
The most popular arrangement today, however, is
the [seder] plate” in his comprehensive Haggadah
substantially different. It is the arrangement ascribed to
10
Shelemah. Despite the name of the chapter, Rabbi Kasher
Rabbi Isaac Luria, (the “Ari,” d. 1572), by his disciple
lists all the foods placed by a long list of authorities on the
H. ayyim Vital’s Etz Ha-Hayyim; the passage is cited at
length in the Be’er Het eiv commentary printed in
6
Neusner, The Mishnah: p. 249. The use of italics represents a most editions of the Shulh. an14 ‘Arukh, including those
This arrangement is
significant textual variant, is explained in the next paragraph. with the Mishna Berurah.
explicitly based on the Kabbalistic doctrine of the
Carcass of the Passover offering is Neusner’s translation.
7
Kafah, ed., Mishnah ‘im perush Rabenu Moshe ben Maimon, sefirot. The zeroa‘ is said to represent the sefirah of
Jerusalem: Mosad Ha-Rav Kook, 5723, Pesahim 10:3, (Hebrew
only edition: p. 129.)
8
11
Ibid., Pesahim 10:3 (p. 129 ) note. 2.
Shulhan ‘Arukh, Orah. H. ayyim 473:4.
9
12
Although perhaps the two cooked dishes of the Mishnah should
Rabbi David Feinstein, Kol Dodi Haggadah, Artscoll
be understood as referring to the Hagigah and to other offerings
Mesorah, Brooklyn 1990, p. 31-32.
13
eaten on the festival; the Passover offering would properly be
Ibid.
14
called “roasted” rather than “cooked.”
Be’er Heteiv to Orah. H. ayyim 473:4, note 8, citing Vital’s
10
Menah. em Kasher, Haggadah Shelema, Jerusalem: Torah Sefer Etz Ha-H. ayyim. I have not had access to Vital’s work
Shelemah, 5727 (1966-7), 61-67.
in preparing these notes.
gevurah, symbolizing the right arm in many Kabbalistic
representations. This is in line with traditional associations of
the zeroa‘ on the seder plate with the zeroa‘ of the Biblical
verse “With a strong hand and outstretched arm zeroa‘
netuyah)…. (Deut. 26:8 and elsewhere). Less clear from the
Be’er Hetev, however, is why the egg represents gedulah, or
the bitter herb tif’eret, usually associated with the heart or
with Jacob. The h azeret (often translated as “lettuce”),
representing the sefira of yesod, is to be placed on the seder
plate only after the other five items. Yesod represents Joseph,
and Jacob’s blessing to Joseph contains a form of the root of
maror (va-yimarreru, Gen 39:23), and hazeret is considered
to be a form of maror. Speculation on why this item was
chosen to represent yesod and be on the Seder Plate, rather
than the salt water, which was included on the seder plate by
Isserles, is beyond the scope of this paper. Somewhat less
problematic, Malkhut, the tenth and most accessible sefirah,
is the seder plate itself. Not only the foods but the plate on
which they are presented are part of the sefirotic symbolism.
The kabbalah underlying the Ari’s arrangement was
well known to Eliyahu Kitov, who paraphrases the
passage from Vital. Nevertheless, Kitov’s analysis of
the arrangement of the plate reads an entirely different
understanding into the arrangement of the seder plate,
suggesting an understanding based on a typology of
mitzvot. The matzot are separate from the other items,
as they are Torah commandments currently applicable.
The seder plate is divided to an “upper” three items,
which also represent Torah commandments. In our
times, when there is no Temple, they are not applicable
from the Torah, although eating the maror “bitter herb”
is considered a Rabbinic precept today. The three
lower items are secondary to the first three, and merely
accompany the commandments. The h. azeret, lowest of
the lower three, is not even necessary, merely a
“remembrance.”18 The salt water is not on the plate in
this arrangement (but it is to be prepared and ready at
hand). Although it is said to recall the tears of the
Hebrew slaves, it is also clear that at the earliest stage,
it merely reflected the requirement to dip the vegetable,
and it was not even mentioned in the Mishnah. Thus,
as it is not specific to the performance of a
commandment, it is not even on the plate.
Interestingly, the Ashkenazi Rabbi Abraham Horowitz,
usually known as the “Shelah” (the abbreviation of the title
of his most famous work, Shnei luhot ha-brit), describes the
Moellin / Isserles system (including a lengthy citation from
Moellin himself) in his section on the laws of the Passover
seder. He does not cite the Ari system here, despite his deep Before making some concluding remarks about the
interest and involvement in Kabbalistic circles in the land of organization of the seder plate, we will discuss the
Israel.15
“orange on the seder plate.” It might be said that this is
one of a number of recent additions to the Seder table,
A third system is that of Elijah the Gaon of Vilna,16 who is mostly not on the Seder plate itself. One, the Cup of
said to have placed maror and haroset on the far side, egg and Elijah, is nearly universal despite all indications that
bone on the near side, and, following an opinion of Rabbi today’s practice of placing a separate goblet is fairly
Isaac Alfasi, only two matzot underneath.
recent. Other new traditions are far from universal, and
include placing an additional “matzah of hope” on the
The Ari’s arrangement is not always understood in its matzah plate or as a separate item; a fifth cup of wine
kabbalistic framework. The Artscroll Hagaddah incorrectly recognizing the State of Israel; and a cup of water
describes the Ari arrangement as providing that the called “Miriam’s Well,” and many others. Analysis of
“proximity of each food [to the leader] is determined these practices, or even a determination of their
according to the order of its use.”17 This is only popularity in actual practice, is beyond our scope here.
approximately true, and the logic is more appropriate to the
Isserles arrangement.
The practice of placing an orange on the seder plate
provides a fascinating study on the speed with which
symbols can gain meanings and stories of their own,
cut loose from the intentions of those believed to have
15
Shney Luhot Ha-brit, Jerusalem 5735 (rpt of 5625), Masekhet
created these symbols. According to Rachel T. Alpert,
Pesahim 2a, left column.
the practice arose in the late 1970s, when a Chabad
16
Noted, e.g., in the Artscroll Haggadah, ed. Rabbi Joseph Elias,
Artscroll-Mesorah, Brooklyn, 1977, rpt. 1994, introduction, p. l
(50). On Alfasi’s opinion, ibid., xlvii. Elias does not note his 18 Eliyahu Kitov, The Heritage Haggadah, trans. G.
source, but see the Vilna Gaon’s comments to this passage in Be’ur Robinson. New York, Feldheim, 1999 (Hebrew: Seder Leil
Ha-Gra, published in all traditional editions of the Shulhan Arukh. Pesah, 1961; I have not had access to the Hebrew original),
17
P. l
pp. 11-13.
rebbetzin visiting the University of California at Berkeley
was asked about the role of lesbians in Judaism. She
compared lesbianism to eating bread on Passover—which
she characterized as a minor transgression although
absolutely forbidden. The questioner, however, came to the
conclusion that lesbians were seen more like bread on the
seder plate itself “a serious breach of Jewish public norms,”
and in so she and her friends put a crust of bread on the seder
plate that year.19 Alpert believes that telling the tale was
quickly substituted for the act itself. Susannah Heschel,
however, reports encountering a feminist group at Oberlin in
the 1980s which put crusts of bread on the Seder Plate as a
sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians. She was opposed to
this: “Bread on the Seder plate brings an end to Pesach—it
renders everything chometz. And it suggests that being
lesbian is being transgressive.” She suggested that an orange
would instead indicate the fruitfulness of inclusion of gays
and lesbians as contributing and active members of the
Jewish community, and that spitting out the seeds would
symbolize the repudiation of homophobia. Those who have
adopted this practice, however, are less likely, it seems, to
repeat either Alpert’s or Heschel’s narratives; instead they
often tell a story of a male congregant or Rabbi in Florida
who said “a woman on the Bimah is out of place, like an
orange on the seder plate.” Although this similar to the
original Oberlin and Berkeley formulations, bread would be
far more out of place than an orange. Heschel observes: “A
woman's words are attributed to a man, and the affirmation of
lesbians and gay men is simply erased.20 Alpert—who makes
what is at most an allusion to Heschel—puts it even more
strongly: lesbians have once again become invisible even in a
story that began as an attempt to represent their pain and
alienation. Regardless of what one thinks about this custom
its interpretational history shows a remarkable speed of
change, and controversy over meaning. It reminds us that
when a community or sub-community adopts symbols,
interpretations can quickly emerge which are substantially
different than those intended by their creators, even when the
creators are well-known and highly regarded.
We have seen several possible typologies of ordering
the items of the seder plate, based on the nature and
specificity of the mitzvot involved, based on
Kabbalistic principles, and based on the order of the
service. The Seder in its modern framework begins and
ends with the hope of being in Israel next year—we
should perhaps think in terms of tensions between the
Land of Israel and other motifs in organizing the seder
plate. This is especially so given the important role of
the Land of Israel in the hierarchy of most of the
blessings over food. Lawrence A. Hoffman, in “Land
of Blessing and ‘Blessing of the Land,’”21 proposes a
typology of food based on blessings said before and
after eating, arguing convincingly that they give
primacy to the products of the land, and especially the
centrality of the Land of Israel.
The Exodus, Temple and Freedom are central themes
of the Seder. The Land of Israel is curiously
underplayed except as the land of future Promise. At
the center of the Haggadah is a passage from
Deuteronomy recited with a complex midrash which
links each segment of each verse to other verses. It
would have been extremely familiar in Temple times,
as it formed the major part of the recitation over the
First Fruits—a Land of Israel motif of course. But in
the Haggadah it is not cited to its conclusion, where it
mentions having come to the Land of Israel. Instead,
the Seder is recited in hope that next year we will be in
the Holy Land, not in celebration of the Holy Land. As
part of reenacting the Exodus, the reenactment of
servitude and exile, and the hope for redemption,
extends even to the organization of foods and foodrelated citations, in avoidance of a Land of Israel
reference.
Why should we bother to understand the meaning
behind the organization of the seder plate? The classic
attempt by an anthropologist to unpack Jewish food
typologies may be Purity and Danger, by Mary
Douglas. In this book she discussed the food
restrictions of prohibited and allowed animals of the
book of Leviticus, explaining them in terms of “dirt”—
things which are out of place are dirty and yield to
taboos.22 Many wrote in response; Jacob Milgrom’s
Rebecca T. Alpert, “New Approaches to welcoming Gay Men
and Lesbians in Judaism” in University of San Francisco, A
Symposium: New Jewish and Christian Approaches to
Homosexuality: the Swig Lecture April 21, 2002, p. 28. This story
was the genesis of the title of Alpert’s book: Like Bread on the
Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the transformation of tradition.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
20
Although this story may be found in many places, I looked at the
21
The Land of Israel: Jewish Perspective Notre Dame:
following website, which has a statement by Susannah Heschel
herself about the start of the practice: (last checked April 21, 2003.) University of Notre Dame Press, 1986, 1- 23.
22
http://www.pacificnet.net/~faigin/MLJ/bin/retrieve.cgi?VOLUME
Purity and Danger, London: Routlege and Kegan Paul,
=10&NUMBER=107&FORMAT=html#entry5
1966.
19
response argued that it is rather the ethical system which
undergirds much of the Biblical dietary system: “There is one
ritual that, in the Bible’s view, is the very base of ethics. To
put it differently, this natural law is higher than the Ten
Commandments.”23 This law is that Man abstain from blood:
shedding human blood and eating animal blood. Milgrom
then presents a typology accompanied by three groups of
three concentric circles, showing how the food hierarchy
relates to other hierarchies within Biblical systems. These
presentations attempt to derive the meaning underlying the
Biblical prescriptions, not necessarily to interpret how they
were glossed by the Biblical text or for that matter
understood today. Douglas’ methodology, for all its
popularity among anthropologists and others, is not very
helpful in describing the seder plate, but Milgrom’s response
is an instructive reminder that the regulations as eventually
codified ultimately flow from and reflect the central ethical
concerns and religious ethos of those who condified them.
Are there ethical or religious principles that are enshrined in
the very arrangement of the symbolic foods set out on the
Passover table? The question does not seem to have been
asked before the time of the Maharil. Some, as we have seen,
follow his suggestion to take the seder plate as a reminder
never to pass over one commandment on the way to do
another—or perhaps even as representing the imperative to
seize opportunities to do mitzvoth. The Ari’s system finds
the world of the sefirot imprinted in the organization of the
Seder foods. Malkhut is the most accessible, and it is
represented by the plate itself. But even among those who
explain the Ari’s system, frequently we find that a
presentation based on a typology of commandments or of
Temple practice takes primacy. Finally, ritual innovations,
such as the orange on the seder plate, whatever one may
think of them, illustrate the vitality of the seder plate or seder
table itself as a symbol of inclusion or exclusion in the
Jewish community. Moreover, this innovation illustrates the
rapid development and fluidity of meanings ascribed to a
practice as it gains currency, with the well-documented
origination no longer widely known and replaced by alternate
narratives and meanings by those who practice it.
Seth Ward
Milgrom, “Ethics and Ritual: The Foundation of the Biblical
Dietary Laws” in E.B. Frimage, B.G. Weiss and J.W. Welch,
Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Reflections, Winona
Lake: Eisenbraun’s, 1990. Milgrom has also discussed this topic in
“The Biblical Diet as an Ethical System” Interpretation 17 (1963)
288-301.
23