Can the arrangement of the Passover Seder plate reflect a deeper message? In the Sephardic tradition, the answer is a resounding yes.
This week’s Torah portion - Parashat Bo - lists many of the commandments that came to define Judaism’s most significant night of memory, identity and storytelling – Passover. Amongst those commandments is the eating of the Korban Pesach - The Paschal Sacrifice: “You shall eat the meat on that night, roasted over fire, with unleavened bread (matzah) and bitter herbs (maror)” (Exodus 12:8).
After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, our Passover celebration changed from a sacrificial ritual to a symposium around the table at home, where we read a book that helps us tell the Passover story – the Haggadah– and we place food items related to the Passover story on a platter we call The Seder Plate.
One of the well known sections of the Haggadah is when we play “show and tell,” based on a teaching of the sage Rabban Gamliel, who famously taught: “All who have not discussed the significance of three things during the Pesach Seder have not yet fulfilled their duty: Pesach (the Paschal sacrifice), Matzah and Maror.”
In his Hazon Ovadia commentary to the Haggadah, Rav Ovadia Yosef, of blessed memory, remarks that Maimonides lists Rabban Gamliel’s “three things” in a different order: “Pesach, Maror and Matzah.” This order differs from the standard “Pesach, Matzah and Maror” in that Maimonides places Maror in the middle, between Pesach and Matzah.
Could Maimonides’ order of “Pesach, Maror and Matzah” have influenced how Sephardim set up the Seder plate? It seems like it did, for unlike the standard Ashkenazi version sold in Judaica stores or printed in most Haggadot, the Sephardic custom is to place Maror— the Bitter Herbs — at the very center of the Seder plate. Just like Maimonides placed Maror in the middle, the Sephardic custom became to place the Maror at the center of the plate. Whenever we look at the Seder plate, Maror sits at the center of everything.
What does this uniquely Sephardic custom reflect?
Any casual student of Jewish history knows that the Jewish experience is as much about bitterness as it is about celebration, and while that might seem like a paradox to many, we Jews understand that life – especially the Jewish journey - is lived between a laugh and a tear. Thus, on the very night when we celebrate our freedom from slavery, we have no problem embracing bitterness and recognizing its ongoing presence and centrality in our collective story. The Sephardic placement of Maror at the center emphasizes this deep truth about the collective Jewish experience.
The Sephardic custom of placing Maror at the center of our story opens the opportunity to expand the Passover story to include our bitter experiences beyond our slavery in Egypt. On that very night, we also remember the Babylonians and Romans who destroyed our Temples in Jerusalem, the inquisition and expulsion from Spain and the pogroms under the cross of Christianity, as well as the episodes of jihad against us under the crescent of Islam. The bitter herbs include Auschwitz and Treblinka, Warsaw and Salonica, the tragedy of those who perished and the trauma of those who survived. Finally, the centrality of Maror calls on us to reflect on contemporary bitterness, including our ongoing fight against terrorism in Israel, as well as the resurgence of anti-Semitism, racism and intolerance around the world. All of these are part of the "Marror narrative" told at the Seder.
While all of this seems painful, indeed bitter, Judaism does not shy away from the bitter truths of our history. Only by telling these bitter stories can we contemplate their lessons as they affect us today. There is no better night to do so than Passover, a night when we are commanded and urged to conduct a meaningful and relevant symposium on where we were, what we've experienced, and where are we headed. The Sephardic placement of Maror at the center is a physical reminder of all of this.
So when we play that game of show and tell, we lift up the Bitter Herbs and we ask: “Maror Zeh” – “These bitter herbs that we eat - what do they recall, what do they mean?"
Maimonides’ unique order of “Pesach, Maror and Matzah,” along with the Sephardic custom of placing maror at the center of the Seder plate - arguably makes this the most important of all questions asked during the Seder.
Shabbat Shalom