The Passover seder is a communal celebration, commemorating the journey of the Jewish people from slavery to freedom. An exploration of the Passover rituals from a feminist perspective affords contemporary Jews an opportunity to reveal the strong women’s tradition that already exists within Judaism. Inspired by the seder, we can enhance and enlighten our understanding of Jewish concepts and further integrate into Jewish tradition the realities of women’s lives and contributions. Identifying female motifs and symbols contained within the traditional seder can stimulate discussion about the expanding spiritual and intellectual opportunities for women in Orthodox Jewish life.
Feminist ideas and images are woven throughout the fabric of our ancient heritage. Some feminist themes intrinsic to the Passover holiday include the development of women as religious and communal leaders and the connections between the covenantal birth of the Jewish nation, the seasonal rebirth of springtime, and the cycles of the female body. We can also pay tribute to the struggles and gains of Jewish women through the ages and in our own time, and acknowledge women as guardians, teachers and advisors of halakha. The Passover themes of birth and liberation speak both to the biological connection of women to the birthing process, and to women’s desire for freedom from their circumscribed roles.
By gathering together around a seder table of our own creation, may we derive inspiration and strength from one another, and begin to incorporate women’s concerns as normative, rather than marginal, components of Jewish spiritual life. Harmonizing our voices with those of our foremothers, may we begin to prepare a place for feminism at the abundant table of Jewish tradition.
Passover, a time of liberation, has also been a difficult time for women as we struggle to rid our houses of every last bit of hametz. While today our household responsibilities are increasingly shared by women and men alike, our Jewish foremothers alone took on the task of preparing their homes for the holiday. Some viewed this as a labor of love, a means of experiencing the Exodus, while others felt the burden of preparation detracted from the spiritual experience of the seder.Today, as we clean our houses, we remember generations of women before us who toiled to ensure that their families would have a shulhan arukh, a set table for Passover.
As women were traditionally in charge of household affairs, the Rabbis assumed that women would take on the task of baking matzah for the holiday. The job came with a great deal of responsibility—women were entrusted to ensure that no hametz contaminated the dough. The Mishna lays out rules for baking the matzah:
רבן גמליאל אומר שלש נשים לשות
כאחת ואופות בתנור אחת זו אחר זו.
וחכמים אומרים שלש נשים עוסקות
בבצק כאחת אחת לשה ואחת עורכת
ואחת אופה. (פסחים ג, ד)
Rabban Gamliel said: Three women may knead the dough together, and bake in the same oven one after another. The Rabbis said: Three women may work with one piece of dough, one kneading, one rolling, and one baking (Pesahim 3:4).
Entrusted with the baking of matzah, women were also responsible for ridding their houses of hametz. The Jerusalem Talmud points to the special zeal of women in performing this mitzvah:
הכל נאמנין על ביעור חמץ אפילו נשים…
הן נאמנות מפני שהן טצילות והן בודקות
כל שאוא כל שהוא (גמרא פסחים 1:1)
All are trusted with the responsibility of biur hametz, including women… Women are especially trustworthy because they are scrupulous in performance of this task, searching every little bit, every little corner (JT Pesahim 1:1).
Adopting the tasks of baking the matzah and cleaning their homes, women often found that the work was backbreaking and difficult. In the eighteenth century one of the most famous Hasidic figures noticed how hard women worked to bake the matzah:
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev discovered that the girls who kneaded the dough for the matzah drudged from early morning until late at night. Then he cried aloud to the congregation gathered in the House of Prayer: “Those who hate Israel accuse us of baking the unleavened bread with the blood of Christians. But no, we bake it with the blood of Jews!” The rabbi pronounced the matzah “treif” because it was produced through oshek, the oppression of workers (M. Buber, Tales of the Hasidim).
While we remember the hours upon hours of physical labor our foremothers invested in preparing for Passover, we also note their spiritual contributions to the holiday. In nineteenth century Italy, Rachel Morpurgo wrote the following prayer, invoking our Matriarchs and expressing her wish that the Temple be rebuilt so that the people of Israel may once again offer the Passover sacrifice:
מי שברך אבותינו אברהם יצחק יעקוב
שרה רבקה רחל ולאה הוא יברך את
כל קהל עדת ישראל ונזכה ונחיה
ונעלה להקריב פסחים על גבי המזבח
שמחים וששים בבנין בית מקדשינו
במהרה בימינו אמן.
May the One who blessed our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, bless the entire congregation of Israel. May we merit and live to make pilgrimages to offer the paschal sacrifice on the altar, happy and rejoicing in the rebuilding of our Temple, speedily in our days. Amen. (Letter dated 1850, reprinted in Ugav Rachel 1903)
בכל דור ודור חייב אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים.
In every generation, we must see ourselves as if we went out of Egypt.
In every generation, we reclaim the heroines and heroes of Jewish history whose visions are truly timeless.
Miriam is one such heroine. An instrumental part of the Exodus, she carefully watched over her brother Moses and joyously led the people in song following the crossing of the sea. While Miriam is not mentioned in the Haggadah (the name of Moses actually appears only once in Rabbi Yossi the Galilean’s elaboration on the number of plagues), her story has been retold throughout the centuries by Jews who look to her as a model of faith, forbearance, and leadership. Miriam’s song is heard once again.
The Bible tells us that Miriam “took a timbrel in her hand,” and sang:
שירו לה׳ כי גאה גאה סוס ורכבו רמה בים.
Sing unto God for God is great, a horse and its chariot have drowned in the sea.
However, the Bible does not record the full text of Miriam’s song. A complete version of the song of Miriam was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (1st c. BCE):
God, you are great, the savior, the enemy’s hope has died and he is forgotten, they have died in the copious waters, we extol him who raises up, and performs majestically (4Q364: 6,2).
Others took note of Miriam’s absence at the seder and strove to remember her with ritual. A medieval collection of responsa preserves a dialogue between the people of Kairouan and Rav Sherira Gaon (10th c.):
They asked of the two foods placed on the seder table, and he responded that they symbolize the two messengers, Moses and Aaron, whom God sent to Egypt. There are those who place a third food on the seder table in memory of Miriam, as it says, “And I will send before you Moses and Aaron and Miriam” (Micah 6:4). These three foods are fish, meat, and an egg, which correspond to the three types of foods Israel will eat in the world to come (Ma’aseh Roke’ach, 59).
The fish was in memory of Miriam; as both the Bible and Midrash associate her with water, the fish is a fitting symbol. It also recalls the fish that the Israelite women fed their husbands in Egypt.
Midrashic tradition associates Miriam with the well that followed the people of Israel in the desert, quenching their thirst in time of need. Miriam’s well became a symbol of sustenance and healing for Jewish people of all times, and especially for women. A medieval encyclopedia of customs (14th c. France) records the following practice:
ונהגו הנשים לדלות מים במוציא שבת
שברארה של מרים בימה של טבריה
וכל מוציא שבת מחזירין על כל
מעינות ועל כל בארות. וכל מי שהוא
חולה ויזדמן לו מים וישתה אפילו
כל גופו מוכה שחין מיד נרפה.
It is the custom that women draw water on Saturday night, as we find in the aggadah that the well of Miriam is located in the Sea of Tiberias. Every Saturday night this well taps into all the wells and springs of the world, and all who drink from this water, even if their entire body is full of boils, will be healed (Kol Bo 41).
While Miriam is remembered as a healer, she is also invoked as an intercessor. In the Yiddish tekhines (individual prayers of Ashkenazi women) the heavenly Miriam is called upon to plead on behalf of her sisters on earth:
In the merit of Miriam the Prophetess, a well of water accompanied the Jews in the desert from the month of Iyar and on. Beloved God, remember us now in her merit, for she sang with the women when the Jews went out of the Red Sea, as it states, “Miriam the Prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took up the drum in her hand.” Wake up, Miriam the Prophetess, wake up from your rest and stand in front of the King of all Kings, the Holy One, and beg Him to have pity on us in this month of Iyar! (Tekhine for Shabbat before Rosh Hodesh Iyar).
As we strive to increase women’s involvement in Jewish spiritual life, we can look to Hasidic thought for inspiration. In the early nineteenth century, Rabbi Kalonymos Kalman Epstein interpreted Miriam’s dance on the banks of the sea as a symbol of the equality men and women will enjoy in the world to come:
לעתיד יתקו כל אחד חלק נשמתו והיה
העיגול והקו שוה ולא יהיה אז בחינת דבר
ונוקבא… וזאת היתה כוונת מרים הנביאה
שהוציאה כל הנשים אחריה ועשתה עמהם
הקפות… ובזה המשיכה אור עליון אשר אין
שם בחינת דבר ונוקבה.
In the future there will no longer be the categories of male and female. All will come to realize the divine light equally. This is just like a circle dance, where every part of the circle’s circumference is equidistant from the center. So will all absorb the clear light of divinity equally. This was the intention of the prophetess Miriam. She had all the women follow her and performed cir- cle dances with them, in order to draw upon the supernal light from the place where the categories of male and female do not exist (Ma’or vaShemesh, B’shalakh).
בזכות נשים צדקניות נגאלו אבותינו ממצרים.
By the merit of the righteous women, our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt.
Deep in the darkness of Egyptian slavery, our foremothers caught glimpses of light. The pyramids of hardship surrounding their vision did not persuade them; they dreamt of openings for themselves and moved swiftly through them. How could they weep at night, when a nation was waiting to be born?
These ingenious women devised elaborate plans to reawaken desire in their work-worn husbands. They fed them, bathed them, and drenched them with sweet-smelling oils–and their magic worked wonders. Our mothers’ wombs grew to be as full as pomegranates. The midrash relates that each woman could have birthed the whole nation–six hundred thousand in each womb!
Shifrah and Pu’ah, the mighty pair of midwives, defied Pharaoh’s strict orders to ensure life continued for a new generation. Girding themselves with the fear of God, they acted willfully and gracefully—and they were successful.
But our mothers’ foresight and skill extended beyond the birthing room. With Miriam as their able guide, they greeted God’s splitting of the sea with an eruption of their own beautiful music. “From where did they have instruments in the middle of the desert?” asks the midrash. They were believers in God’s miracles, these women and they were prepared for redemption.
As we greet redemption at Passover each year, we, too, are the midwives of our people. Preparing our houses and families for the holiday is a true labor of love, fueled by fear of God and faith in the future. All year long, as we assume leadership roles in our homes and in the community at large, we see new possibilities where there appears to be darkness. We gather strength from Shifrah and Pu’ah, Miriam and Yocheved, joining our forces together to effect change. Let us allow Miriam’s song of praise to inspire us and guide our steps.
Maggid: Telling Our Story
Teaching and learning, mesorah and kabbalah, they form the core of the seder experience. The halakha instructs that even if one celebrates the Passover alone, the tale of the Exodus must still be told. The night’s obligations cannot be fulfilled without transmission, absorption, renewal. We all shine as teachers at the seder as we endlessly explore new ways to engage our children and ourselves. The chain of Jewish tradition and learning is kept strong all year long by our teachers.
As part of this chain, Jewish women have long held the keys to Jewish knowledge and tradition. Women have carefully molded Jewish identity for their children, as they passed down the intricate ways of our foremothers. At times, Jewish women could not even write the Alef-Bet, but they shared the wealth of knowledge, from mouths to ears. Women, along with men, are responsible for the education of their children, as the verse says, “Listen, my son to the lessons of your father; do not stray from the Torah of your mother” (Proverbs 1:8).
Outside the home as well, women are visible as teachers and models of Torah. In ancient times, Miriam, Deborah, and Hannah lit the torch for the public teaching of Torah. Today, we reclaim that early flame. Female Torah giants of our times, like Nechama Leibowitz and Sara Schenirer, have left indelible marks on the ways we study biblical texts. They did not emerge from an unlit path. The firzogerins, or female prayer leaders, of Ashkenazi synagogues and the tenacious female masters of Torah in Sephardi lands were the forebears of our teachers.
We have only begun to witness the impact of female teachers on our community. As more women are trained in Torah study and are afforded the opportunity to share their knowledge, our community will be transformed. As the Haggadah says, the more we teach, the more we shall be praised.
כל המרבה לספר הרי זה משבח.
Matzah: Struggle and Liberation
When extended Maggid discussions give way to pangs of hunger late on the seder night, and we munch on our matzah, we experience the freedom of the Exodus. Matzah, representing the bread of the Jews who fled Egypt, is primarily a symbol of liberation. We eat the unleavened bread on Passover to remember that ancient journey of free dom and to recreate the journey in our own lives. However, matzah is also the bread of affliction, of poverty. It is bread without luxury or substance–flat and dry. A poor person, a slave, subsists on matzah without recourse.
In this sense, “freedom matzah” is baked with the ingredient of slavery. Matzah reminds us of our lowly origins and humbles us. At the same time, matzah teaches us to celebrate the privileges God has granted us. Jewish women of the late twentieth century are all too familiar with this type of duality. We live with enormous freedom and burgeoning possibility, far greater than our foremothers could have imagined. Jewish scholarship and study are no longer closed to us. We are day school principals, philanthropists, professors, and halakhic advisors. We may choose to congregate as women to pray, to celebrate Rosh Hodesh, to honor the bride. We are the masters of our own Jewish identities.
And yet our freedom is still limited— we incur losses on our journey. There are those among us who live in the chains of the agunah. We still struggle to find the solutions within our life-giving halakha to release them from their personal slavery. Despite our collective gains as Jewish women, we suffer from marginalization, rifts and misunderstandings. We search for bridges to connect disparate groups, to foster dialogue and create widespread change, but we still meet with difficulties on our way.
And so matzah remains a powerful symbol of caution amidst celebration. It pushes us to reach higher and higher, without ever forgetting to look back— and all around us.
Blood and Water
The mark of blood on the doorposts of the Israelites signals not only God’s mercy in letting danger “pass over” our ancestors, but our arrival as a nation at a sacred threshold, a point of transformation, a borderline to be crossed. At this time of year we are summoned to “pass over” physically and spiritually from winter to spring, from dormancy to awakening life, from the cities of Egypt to the wilderness of Sinai, from the narrowness of slavery to the exultation of freedom. For Jewish women, blood marks the crossing of other sacred thresholds; from girlhood to adulthood, from maidenhood to motherhood. Our rituals are a stopping place, an oasis, the brink between the realms of the sacred and the profane. Like the Israelites sheltered within the bloodstained doorposts of their homes until their passage through the redemptive waters of the Red Sea, Jewish women in niddah constitute a holy community temporarily set apart until immersion in the purifying mikvah waters.
Water, like blood, symbolizes transitional states of being. Intimately connected with the cycles of women’s bodies, these twin elements permeate the threshold between our selves and the world. Images of blood and water infuse the Passover seder in the four cups of blood-red wine that some commentators consider represent our mothers Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah; in the haroset, whose wines soaked apples recall our foremothers in Egypt who conceived beneath apple trees. Rivers, wells and seas; images of feminine consciousness recur through the Passover story. They connect us with the deepest meaning of the festival, hallowing through our rituals God’s essential partnership with women as agents of transfiguration and salvation, and as bearers of new life.
The fourteen ritual stages of the Passover Seder are specific ceremonial acts that can help us reflect on the many rituals that enhance our lives as Jewish women throughout the year.
קדש: Blessing the Wine
Kadesh evokes images of women’s voices, which can be heard loud and strong, as we recite kiddush over wine on Shabbat and holidays.
ורחתץ: Washing the Hands
The many ways water can be used to wash away ritual impurity are familiar to women. Here we celebrate the generations of women who have served on their community’s hevra kadisha, performing the final act of kindness for their fellow sisters by cleansing them with water before burial.
כרפס: Dipping the Vegetable
The fresh green vegetables on the seder table remind us that each spring we celebrate the earth’s ability to create life anew, and that we have new celebrations of simhat bat and bat mitzvah to welcome Jewish girls into the community with joy.
יחץ: Breaking the Matzah
Just as we separate the matzah and set apart a portion, women for centuries have been separating hallah. In temple times, the separated dough was given to the priests. As we separate hallah today, we remember the temple and the giving hands of our foremothers who sustained those who served in it.
מגיד: The Narration
As we recount the story of the Exodus, we honor our mothers who sang songs of praise after leaving Egypt. We add our voices to theirs as we serve as ba’alot hamaggid—leaders and tellers of the Passover story.
רחצה: Washing the Hands
This use of water in the seder to wash away ritual impurity resonates in the minds of women as we think of our own monthly uses of the waters of the mikvah.
מוציא מצה: Blessing the Matzah
In reciting the blessing over the matzah, we are reminded that we may recite the hamotzi for our families each week at the Shabbat table.
מרור: Bitter Herbs
As we experience the bitter taste of the maror, we think of the many agunot in our community whose lives are truly embittered.
כורך: The Matzah Sandwich
Representing the uniting of the various elements of the seder plate, korekh alludes to the uniting of women’s strengths in gatherings such as women’s tefillah and women’s Rosh Hodesh groups. It may also represent women uniting with men in their communities to work in partnership to address inequities and injustice that affect us all.
שלחן עורך: The Meal
As the food appears on the seder table, our thoughts are drawn to the various ways in which women are involved with the ritual observance of kashrut. Throughout history, women have been trusted in matters of kashrut, and today, many women turn to other women with halakhic questions regarding kashrut and food preparation.
צפון: Eating the Afikomen
As the hidden portion of matzah emerges at the end of the seder meal, we celebrate of the emergence of women from the shadows of modern Jewish life. We reaffirm the importance of modesty in the lives of both men and women, even as we take on public communal roles.
ברך: The Blessing After Meals
The recitation of zimmun at the beginning of birkat hamazon reminds us that women may lead and participate in our own zimmunim.
הלל: Praise
As we sing the hallel, we reflect on the growing power of women’s voices, and the ways in which the voices of Miriam, Devorah and Hannah resonate in our lives and prayers. We pay tribute to more inclusive minyanim, like Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem and Darkhei Noam in New York, for providing a place for women to more fully participate in tefillah and community leadership.
נרצה: Thanksgiving
Concluding with notes of hope and praise, the nirtzah service reminds us to be thankful for our many blessings as Jewish women. While the struggle for involvement of women in religious ritual may be painful and slow, we learn to cherish each new gain, and are encouraged by the words “Next Year in Jerusalem.”