I, Shifra Freewoman, (susan fielding was my name at the time) , wrote a story in 1983 or 84 called a crust of bread at the seder table, during winter term at oberlin college.
I based it on a news clipping from new women's times, a new york feminist news paper. I found the clipping somewhere between 1980-82.
The basic story in the paper was that a group of jewish feminsts asked a rabbi, what was the place of lesbians in Judiasm. A rabbi responded that there is as much space for a lesbian in judaism as there is for chometz-bread at the seder table.
The women responded by placing a crust of bread on the seder plate to symbolize their desire to include lesbians.
Whether the clipping was accurate or not, I don't know, but i loved it and decided to make it into a story,
I kept the basic facts, but embelished it to make it into a good story. I turned the Rabbi into the Fabrente Rebbe, because he was a hothead fiery, and I develpend a character called the feminister Rebba, a feminist, woman rabbi.
A group of us at Oberlin, jewish feminists, who were putting together a womens haggadah, liked my story and decided to include it.
There was a discussion, which I missed, about whether to do as the women in the story did, ie putting a crust of bread on the seder table.
Some of the women favored putting a crust on the seder table-i know at the time, I would have advocated that. Others were not comfortable with associating lesbians with chometz. Finally a lovely solution was found, we'd keep the story, but instead of using bread, we would leave an open space-Makom in Hebrew- on the seder plate for all including lesbians, who were excluded due to fear and ignorance. Makom is also a word for God, It means place, god is the place of the world.
Our haggadah, included this info and a blessing for including all who were left out.
One of the participants wrote a piece, about the process, of how we came to a decision, kind of a ritual story.
So we as a group never did put a crust of bread on the seder table.
A number of years ago Rebbecca Alpert called me, for permisssion to use the title for the story I wrote for her book.
She did some further research about the story. Apparently the "true story" was that the women asked a chabad rebbitzen about the place of lesbians in Judiasm, and she said, oh, its not a big deal its like chometz, at the seder table.
Now, I thought, how could a rebbizen say that- even a tiny amount of chometz is totally unacceptable. It seems like a very big deal.
But, a male friend suggested that maybe she had a differerent view of the matter, maybe she didn't make as big of a deal of the restriction on chometz as a male rabbi would. And perhapss for her lesbianism was not a big deal.
Also in my view, Jewish traditon sometimes tends to trivilize matters relating to women, and lesbeanism is not mentioned in the Torah.
In truth, lesbianism is transgressive of male domination, and it may be trivialized as a way to make it less threatening. Also chabbadnicks tend to prosletize and are sometimes willing to be somewhat welcoming so as not to totally drive outsider jews away.
Of course this is all speculation, the last part, And we probably we will never know the true story, Other women have already writtin about the further transmutation of the story to an orange on the seder table, etc. as started by Sussanah Heschel It's fasinating to me how an oral tradition changes over time and thats only over the last 35 years. Imagine the evolution of customs over 4000 years , oye vey.
Maybe at some point I'll get ti together to print the story on this blog,
I, Shifra Freewoman, (susan fielding was my name at the time) , wrote a story in 1983 or 84 called a crust of bread at the seder table, during winter term at oberlin college.
I based it on a news clipping from new women's times, a new york feminist news paper. I found the clipping somewhere between 1980-82.
The basic story in the paper was that a group of jewish feminsts asked a rabbi, what was the place of lesbians in Judiasm. A rabbi responded that there is as much space for a lesbian in judaism as there is for chometz-bread at the seder table.
The women responded by placing a crust of bread on the seder plate to symbolize their desire to include lesbians.
Whether the clipping was accurate or not, I don't know, but i loved it and decided to make it into a story,
I kept the basic facts, but embelished it to make it into a good story. I turned the Rabbi into the Fabrente Rebbe, because he was a hothead fiery, and I develpend a character called the feminister Rebba, a feminist, woman rabbi.
A group of us at Oberlin, jewish feminists, who were putting together a womens haggadah, liked my story and decided to include it.
There was a discussion, which I missed, about whether to do as the women in the story did, ie putting a crust of bread on the seder table.
Some of the women favored putting a crust on the seder table-i know at the time, I would have advocated that. Others were not comfortable with associating lesbians with chometz. Finally a lovely solution was found, we'd keep the story, but instead of using bread, we would leave an open space-Makom in Hebrew- on the seder plate for all including lesbians, who were excluded due to fear and ignorance. Makom is also a word for God, It means place, god is the place of the world.
Our haggadah, included this info and a blessing for including all who were left out.
One of the participants wrote a piece, about the process, of how we came to a decision, kind of a ritual story.
So we as a group never did put a crust of bread on the seder table.
A number of years ago Rebbecca Alpert called me, for permisssion to use the title for the story I wrote for her book.
She did some further research about the story. Apparently the "true story" was that the women asked a chabad rebbitzen about the place of lesbians in Judiasm, and she said, oh, its not a big deal its like chometz, at the seder table.
Now, I thought, how could a rebbizen say that- even a tiny amount of chometz is totally unacceptable. It seems like a very big deal.
But, a male friend suggested that maybe she had a differerent view of the matter, maybe she didn't make as big of a deal of the restriction on chometz as a male rabbi would. And perhapss for her lesbianism was not a big deal.
Also in my view, Jewish traditon sometimes tends to trivilize matters relating to women, and lesbeanism is not mentioned in the Torah.
In truth, lesbianism is transgressive of male domination, and it may be trivialized as a way to make it less threatening. Also chabbadnicks tend to prosletize and are sometimes willing to be somewhat welcoming so as not to totally drive outsider jews away.
Of course this is all speculation, the last part, And we probably we will never know the true story, Other women have already writtin about the further transmutation of the story to an orange on the seder table, etc. as started by Sussanah Heschel It's fasinating to me how an oral tradition changes over time and thats only over the last 35 years. Imagine the evolution of customs over 4000 years , oye vey.
Maybe at some point I'll get ti together to print the story on this blog,