What is the Seder Plate

The Seder Plate, or the Ke’arah, is the piece de resistance of any Seder table. It is usually highly decorative and uses food to tell the story of the exodus, the Jew’s flight to freedom and redemption. There are six representative food on the Seder plate, though while everyone agrees what the food symbolizes, not everyone agrees what the food is.

The Zeroah, or the shank bone, represents the Pesach offering brought in the temple and the outstretched arm of G-d herding the Jews to safety and at the same time striking the Egyptians with his might. The Zeraoh is usually either a thigh or wing of a chicken.

The Beitza, or egg, represent the festival offering brought in the temple.

The Maror, or bitter herbs, represent the suffering the Jews sustained in Egypt. Some people use the root of a horseradish, others use it mixed with beets and still others simply use Romaine lettuce.

Choreset represents the mortar the Jews used to build (and take down) and build (and take down) etc. There are many recipes for this, but most include apples, ground walnuts and sweet wine/grape juice while some include dates

Karpas or vegetable (dipped in salt water) signifies the salty tears the Jews wept. Karpas is interesting in that it is usually described as a green leafy vegetable like parsley or celery, but most Eastern European Jews use a potato (or onion) probably because in April there were simply no green leafy vegetables so they used the closest thing.

Chazeret or more bitter herbs are usually Romaine lettuce. While lettuce is not inherently bitter the root, when left in the ground turns hard and bitter. This is usually used in the sandwich of bitter herbs and Choreset.

History of the Seder Plate

The story of the Seder plate really began with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem when the celebration of the holiday moved from the Temple sacrifices to the home. Foods that had been used in sacrifices like lamb became the symbolic objects on the Seder plate to illustrate the story.

Although the Seder plate took form from 70 C.E., unfortunately, there are no examples of artistically beautiful Seder plates we find today both in museums and homes. The first artistic Seder plate is actually a basket called a Ke'arah in 1000 AD. Yet, the manifestation of artistic design in Seder plates only really came about in the 16th century especially in Spain and Italy made of costly materials such as wood, porcelain and copper, but interestingly, not silver – like many other Jewish ritual objects were made of (like Kiddush cups, Havdalah sets etc).

Arrangement of the Seder Plate

There are three main methods for the arrangement of the Seder plate
1.Rabbi Yosef Karo in his Shulchan Aruch ( 473:4) and the Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan better known as the Chofetz Chaim (473:24)

         Egg         shankbone

Haroset         bitter herbs or Maror

         Three Matzos

Salt water          Karpas ( some vegetable was often substituted like potato)

This order was a practical one as the Karpas was used first for the first dipping in salt water and then later, the Maror in the Haroset. This was done in order that there should not be any Mitzva that is temporarily skipped or overlooked (RAMAH 473:4)

2.The Holy kabbalist Rabbi Yitchak Luria better known as the ARI ZAL. His seder plate reflected Kabalistic concepts of the ten SFIROT
The three Matzos corresponded to CHAMA , BINA, DAAS

Egg (Gevura)                  Shankbone (Chesed)

           Bitter herbsor maror(Tiferes)

Karpas (Hod)                      Haroset (Netzach)

                       Chazeret (Yesod)

The plate itself (Malchut)

3.The saintly Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman better known as the Vilna Gaon suggested:

Charoset             Maror
        2 matzos
Egg                 Shankbone

This seemingly lackluster Seder plate and the omission of Karpas may stem from the ruling of the Rambam (Zemanim chametz u matza 8:2) that Karpas needs to be a Kezayit or the size of biblical olive for it to be significant from a ceremonial point of view. Since the Askenazic custom was only to eat a little piece of Karpas, it became not important enough to be put on the Seder plate.


Many homes follow their family traditions with regard to the Seder plate while others often choose to arrange the plate differently every year.