A New Tradition: A Fig

Rabbi Paula R. Goldberg and Rabbi Shira H. Joseph wrote a women’s Haggadah called The  Matriarch’s Dance: A Celebration of Transformation and Redemption. In it, they added a fig to the seder plate. If you choose to incorporate this symbol, do so after the descriptions of and blessings for the matzah, maror—bitter herbs—and korech—sandwich of matzah, maror, and charoset, inspired by Hillel’s tradition.

Point to the fig and say, “Seder plates in modern times often have new symbols added, representing our willingness and ability to transform the tradition and ourselves. Haleilah hazeh, this night, we add the t’einah, fig, to our seder plates. In The Song of Songs, the fig represents the sweetness and renewal of the springtime. To the ancient rabbis, the fig was a symbol of the sweetness of learning Torah. For us, the t’einah is a symbol of the future. Its sweetness represents the sweet vision of peace and justice to which we dedicate ourselves. The fig holds the promise of a world transformed, a world in which ‘all will sit under their vine and their fig tree and none shall make them afraid’” (Micah 4:4).

From the Union for Reform Judaism's Jewish Parent Page