Our family had a seder last night, and in preparation, my husband, Barry, found a copy of the San Diego Women’s Haggadah that I and five other women had written in 1980. After the first meeting with these women, I went to home and was inspired to write the following poem that was included in our finished product
seder of a woman
“Start a week before,
Every drawer, every shelf, is stripped and scrubbed,
A rite performed every spring since Pharaoh forced
Those chosen to flee before their bread could rise.
I wash a plate, stained black from last year’s news
and filled with years of family seders;
And think of Miriam,
the woman who started
Our journey to the promised land.
Regret the flat, tasteless bread?
Did you serve your men?
Or did you know we would share your work?
Every spring, when we remember their exodus from slavery,
Does that still have to be complete?
While the smells of spring and chicken soup mix pleasantly,
I peeled an apple, chopped the nuts, and took a sip of wine.
Remembering the bricks that came between
Every girl from the ghetto and the study of Torah.
The leg bone roasts and fills the air
Inside my modern home
With smells of sacrifice that women made
So that there would be seders every year.
I fill a plate with bitter herbs,
But don’t feel bitter
Cause I know every little chore inked me
With every Hebrew woman he prepared
a seder meal since Gd proclaimed that the Jews
You should celebrate your freedom every year.
Surely G-d never meant
So that women are overlooked.