100 Objects #13
Pesach plate 1932
With Passover on the horizon the conversations have started amongst the museum staff on where everyone is going for first and second night seder. The usual logistics of family and friends and space are all there, but so is the positivity of a Passover with all the family, something many of us have not enjoyed these past couple of Covid years.
The museum’s collection of Passover objects is phenomenal, from letters from the Bakers Union about keeping kosher for Passover, to Elijah cups, seder plates, and photographs of family seders. The options to choose from for this article were in the hundreds. There is, however, one Passover object I have loved since I joined the museum more than nine years ago. It was, in fact, the very first object that was launched on our learning portal, which now reaches over 20,000 teachers each year.
This object is on loan to the museum from our friends at the Jewish Historical Society of England, who purchased it in 1932, coincidentally the same year the museum was founded. We store over 100 objects from their collection, as we do for many Jewish organisations, both preserving the collection itself and enabling access for visitors and researchers.
I think this object is particularly beautiful as the longer you look the more detail you find. Made of brass with silver inlay and standing at only 20cm, the plate is full of imagery and symbolism on the history of Judaism and the Jewish people.
If we start at the top of the plate, we see an image depicting Abraham with his hand raised above Isaac, who is bound.
We see the angel reaching for Abraham’s knife to stop the act of sacrifice. The Hebrew writing above reads ‘The Binding of Isaac’ and the Arabic writing above, I am reliably informed, reads ‘The Binding of Ishmael’.
Below this, on the left is an image of Aaron dressed in the garments of the high priest and with his brother Moses on the right holding the ten commandments. Between them are the images of the 12 sons of Jacob, who become the 12 tribes of Israel with their emblems above them in the circular discs.
Beneath this is an eagle, with the Hebrew inscription ‘and I carried you upon the wings of eagles, and I brought you unto me’.
This is a quote from the book of Exodus which speaks to how G-d saved the Hebrews from slavery. Beneath the bird we can see Moses with his staff leading the Hebrews out of Egypt before splitting the Red Sea.
I could spend a day reading this object and finding meaning between the imagery and the stories. I hope that I have been able to show you a teaser of the true beauty of this object.