Passover Seder Orange

Recently at Albright College in my senior seminar capstone course we had a Passover Seder that Dr. Mehta led. The Seder was my first and I learned a lot about the traditions of the Passover Seder. There was a good bit of food present, there would have been more but I forgot to bring my dish that day, but we only ate a small portion of the food that was present. There was a turnip that represented how the Lord passed over the homes of the Jewish ancestors; there was a roasted egg that is associated with mourning and the destruction of the temple; and also an orange that represents the notion that there is a place for everyone regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

The orange use to be a peculiar part of the Passover Seder plate because where the orange was there use to be bread. And the bread represented that being of a different sexual orientation was useless and went against Judaism. To have an orange be transformed into a religious artifact that is representative of inclusion was an eye opening part of the Seder. The orange not only represents inclusion but also represents fruitfulness that all member, including transgender gay men and women, can provide to Judaism.

The class and I also went on a field trip to the Ephrata Cloister. At the Ephrata Cloister the class and I learned that their theology included a God that had two parts. The God of the Ephrata Cloister had a male half and a female half. There was, interestingly enough, also a fruit found in the iconography of the Ephrata Cloister. The fruit was a pomegranate that represented the soft feminine side of God.

The involvement of fruit both in the Passover Seder and the imagery of the Ephrata Cloister opens the door to a realm of enclosure. In the Passover Seder there use to not be a place for the LGBTQ community but now there is a place for everyone. There also is a shift in the viewing of ostracized as well. The Haggadah talks about the fruitfulness that is provided by them when they work together in Judaism. The fact that this falls under the food as religion section of our course expresses intertwining intricacies of food and religion.

The presence of the orange reminds me of the open table that came to be the model in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. During Communion Sunday we recite the Ten Commandments and take communion in order to wash away our sins. Originally the only way to take communion was to be a member of the church for ninety days but the AMEC seeing that this was keeping sinners away from washing their sins away embraced the open table model.

One thing to remember is that they are human, work, and contribute, to the cause just like the rest of humanity. The notion does not carry over into the Seder because it is commemorative but for communion the person cannot receive help if they are not able to get to the help.