Will an apple join the orange on your seder plate?
This year, Hadassah Gross is asking you to put an apple on your seder plate.
Apple on Your Seder Plate from Amichai Lau-Lavie on Vimeo.
Amichai Lau-Lavie (who I believe plays Hadassah Gross?), is the founding director of Storahtelling Inc. He writes:
This Passover, add a new symbol to your table and ask new questions about global economy, consumer responsibility, human rights, what we can do to be more of the solution, less of the problem. Passover is the allegory for human freedom, then and now.
Why an apple? It's a mythic fruit and a modern icon reminding us of the ethical responsibility that comes with privileged consumerism. Apple is not only the world's largest corporation, providing our goods - at a price to its workers - it is also the one that took allegations seriously and launched a serious investigation to improve its China workforce. Put an apple on your Seder plate to raise awareness and keep on the good fight.
In order to help stir the juices further, Lau-Lavie's "SayDer" provides four new questions to help us think about slavery and consumerism in a modern context.
1. What significant change has occurred in your life since this time last year? Name one meaningful piece of news.
2. Identify the problem. What enslaves you today? What’s holding you back from being freer, happy, and creative?
3. Identify possible solutions. What can you do to help end your enslavement and reduce that which holds you back from more freedom and creativity? What will help you fight the Pharaohs within?
4. We can’t end the Seder till we all commit to making the world a better place, with less oppression and more freedom. What is your vision of a freer world? What do you commit to in the coming year to help reduce slavery and oppression in the world?
Although we'd like to point out that the orange on the seder plate originated in LGBT activism as well as women's rights, it is certainly an example of how the Passover seder ritual has evolved to reflect changing attitudes, values, and traditions in the Jewish community. In ten years, will the same be said of the apple?
Will an apple be joining the orange on your seder plate this year?
Regina Gradess contributed this comment to JWA: "We place a turnip on our seder plate as a reminder of the weak turnip soup that our family matriarch, my mother, Pearl Rosenzveig, survived on in Bergen Belsen concentration camp. She came out with pleurisy and loose teeth, but she recovered, thanks to Sweden's kindness. Her determination helped her live and make a new life for herself in America where she is now the grandmother of six and the great grandmother of one with one on the way."
Brilliant! JWA providing this link, likewise!