Seder Plate

This is my personal Seder plate. It's not special, it's not vintage or antique. It's just a pressed plate we ordered online. However, it's "specialness" and why it's a curio doesn't come from it's age, but rather its usage and meaning.

There are many other people who can explain what a Seder plate is far better than I can. In short, it's used during Pesach (Passover in English) as part of the ritual service to represent important parts of the exodus from Egypt. We place six special items on it, each representing an aspect of the story. You can read more about here from Chabad.

The Seder plate represents the story of Passover in Judaism, but it has another special meaning for me. I was not raised from infancy in Judaism or Messianic Judaism. We only started when I was an early teenager. I don't have a latent nostalgia for Seders of my childhood. What I do have is clear memories of trying to figure out a Messianic Seder with my family, comically messing it up and falling asleep at the table. I see the plate and think of the past years of exploring the traditions I didn't grow up knowing.

To many Jews, the Passover Seder is an honored tradition, representing one of the beginnings of our faith. After all, it was because of the exodus that we received Torah. For me, the Passover Seder symbolizes the beginning of the return to my ancestral faith and a coming-home to my culture and heritage.

It's a sort of mini-aliyah, and reminds me of this verse:

"Even if your outcasts are at the ends of the heavens, from there Adonai your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. Adonai your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, and you will possess it." (Deuteronomy 30:4-5 TLV)