How I experienced Jewish Seder as a Christian ‘foodie’
By Aimee, age 23, Ambassador with Springtide Research Institute
Springtide Research Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, that delivers accessible social-scientific research on young people ages 13-25. Springtide is paying particular attention to the changing landscapes of meaning, identity, and community when it comes to understanding emerging generations. One way they do this is through facilitating the Springtide Ambassadors Program which is open to teens and young adults throughout the U.S. Springtide Ambassadors help shape the research efforts and community engagement of Springtide. Through collaboration and reflection, Ambassadors actively contribute to national research projects and publications sharing their insights, perspectives, and experiences. 2024 Ambassadors were recently invited to submit a piece to Faith Counts that responded to the following prompt:
Discuss an interfaith experience you’ve encountered personally or observed in your community. Reflect on how this experience challenged or enriched your understanding of religious diversity, tolerance, and cooperation. Consider the impact of interfaith dialogue on promoting harmony and understanding among different religious traditions.
Below is an essay we’re thrilled to share from Springtide Ambassador, Aimee, age 23:
Even more than half a lifetime ago (for me at least), I still remember one evening in the early 2010s. My sister had recently married into a Jewish family, and we flew out from California to visit her in-laws and join them for Passover Seder in their Ohio home.
I’m a foodie, so my mind often best retains memories around the table. My brother-in-law’s mother prepared a beef brisket. I marveled at the Seder plate as a family member explained the Exodus symbolism of the bitter herbs (maror), shank bone, and salt water (tears of the Israelites). And I distinctly remember the word “haroset”, which a quick Google search refreshes my tastebuds’ memory to a sweet apple, cinnamon, and nut paste.
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Now, I was first invited to and started attending a Baptist church (the one I was eventually baptized at a decade later and continue to attend to this day) when I was in third grade, circa 2009. Before that, I had a little religious background. (I know this because my most prominent Easter memory growing up was having a chocolate bunny melt in the trunk of the car.) I had little concept of Christianity, let alone Jesus.
And so, what strikes me, more than a decade later, now looking back at this Passover meal with a Christian lens, is a great respect and admiration for the long-standing traditions within the Jewish faith, the likes of which Jesus, a Jew himself, would have participated in.
Now having a Protestant background, I often think of the Catholic Church as having a long history and rituals intricate like the stained glasses that adorn the sanctuary walls. However, it is Judaism that is fundamentally at the root of all Christian faiths, not just the Torah giving the first five books of the Bible but the Jewish tradition being central to the personhood of Jesus Christ (the real historical person).
I reflect on the culture of my home church. It is not uncommon to see congregants wearing Hawaiian shirts and jeans on any given Sunday. Celebrating Communion once a month, with grape juice and a bit of King’s Hawaiian roll, is perhaps the closest we come to a tradition symbolic in nature as the Passover Seder. On our other holidays, we put up an angel-topped tree and hide plastic eggs for the children. And so, as Christianity sometimes starts to feel commercialized and secularized, I appreciate the unadulterated practice of and faithful commitment to the Passover Seder.
Just as the history of Judaism informs the basis of Christianity, so in the same way our experiences inform how we approach others and different beliefs. May we gather around the table with the people around us, around the bitter and the sweet, and come away with an appreciation for new ideas, for traditions of old, and for one another.
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