Do you know the reasons for the Seder meal? and what the dishes mean. If you don't I will post them tomorrow and maybe that will help

Hi Modern Girl

Welcome to the WC!

Crazyheart will come to your rescue tomorrow. I read your blogs about the seder and I could just picture you sitting there sweating bullets....lol. Perhaps your boyfriend's family are sophisicated  or fairly serious; a bit orthodox?  You worried a lot about being proper!  Oh well, you made it through .

My profile currently has a Seder plate( Ka'ara)  image. They can look a bit like a deviled egg plate.

Pesach (Passover) may see someone with pretty plain dishes haul out the most lovely seder plates (also called Passover trays). There are often six circular indentations. This allows maror, karpas, chazaret, charoset, zeroa and baytza to be kept separate and to be displayed prominently and juxtaposed together. Which goes where is usually simple to figure out because of the symbols or images. The indentations and it being marked make it easier to do what you are supposed to in halakha (Jewish law). There is an order that things go in, arranged in the order they will be used.

The imagery on them can be varied. They are works of art.

I will check out your other threads also.

Peace

StevieG

this may or may not be applicable, but the passover seder that i just attended featured an orange on the seder plate...

the explanation being that at some point, a noted rabbi commented that 'having women as rabbis makes about as much sense as having an orange on a seder plate'.  my jewish friend has had an orange on her seder plate ever since!!!

sigh,

There are newer traditions being made, where women or others are represented.  The orange is a modern-day custom in support of including marginalized Jews in mainstream Jewish life... Yet, the old traditions come up against it... or determine how willing they are to change the margins... or they just say it was their idea   LMAO

http://www.ritualwell.org/holidays/passover/onthesedertable/primaryobject.2005-07-08.9776011383

Miriam's cup is what feminists often add to the Seder.

Thanks everyone for replying! :)

Crazyheart - I do indeed know the purpose behind the Seder Dish, sorry I didn't explain that. I think StevieG did a much better job explaining it than I ever could.

But basically, the Seder plate is used to symbolize things important to Passover - things that symbolize the lives of the Jews as slaves in Egypt. But the Easter Egg Plate is just a cute little holding dish to display colorfully painted eggs on, and is not symbolic of anything solemn or important.

Yet the two look strikingly similar, which is what has me confused.

So if anyone has answers as to why they look similar (perhaps the Christians modelled egg plates after the Seder dish...or perhaps it was a Jew who worked for and company who wanted to market Easter Egg plates) please let me know :)

Stardust - thanks for taking the time to check out my blog. My boyfriend's family is pretty unique. Both of his parents grew up in households that didn't keep kosher. His dad didn't go to shul (synagogue) often, and his mom went to a Reform temple. Both of them of them of sort of had a spiritual awakening in their young adulthood, and when they married they decided to keep kosher. They now live next to an Orthodox shul - but I wouldn't call them Orthodox. They only go to shul 3 days a year (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur). His Dad *did* go through a semi-religious period, where he made the family observe Sabbath by not using electricity, but that was years ago.

They are indeed sophisticated. There are many contrasts between my family and my boyfriends besides religion. Instead of rewriting everything on here, I'd suggest reading my blog entry from the fall: http://sinnersaintshiksa.blogspot.com/2008/10/ill-be-home-for-christmas.html

And yes, I always worry a lot about being proper. It's my token neuroticism.

~Modern Girl

Oh and I love the orange on the Seder plate story. I will definitly have to share that with others.