Orange, Etc.

Some time ago, an important religious leader in the jewish faith famously remarked, "A woman as a rabbi is as out of place as an orange on a seder plate." Beside the shank bone, beside the bitter herbs on our hand-painted plate sits every year an orange. Janet was the most Orthodox in our little family, although even she was reform, so the orange was a deal-or-no-deal thing for us when first introduced. She embraced it. An orange is, after all, Kosher. But yes, a whale feels out of place in a river, but what if the whole river is now above sea level and no longer wet? What is the entire painting dries up and the paint curdles? What is the Seder if it is not the seder I have always lived by? What is an Italian dinner near the hospital? It is acceptance from them, and confusion from me.