Why a Haggadah?

by Jonathan Safran Foer

I SPENT much of the last several years working on a new Haggadah — the guidebook for the prayers, rituals and songs of the Seder — and am often asked why I would want to take time away from my own writing to invest myself in such a project.

All my life, my parents have hosted the Seder on the first night of Passover. As our family expanded, and as our definition of family expanded, we moved the ritual dinner from our dining room to our more spacious, mildewed basement. One table became many table-like surfaces pushed awkwardly together. I always knew Passover was approaching when my father would ask me to take the net off the ping-pong table. All were covered in once matching, stained tablecloths.

At each setting was a Haggadah that my parents had assembled by photocopying favorite passages from other Haggadot and, when the Foers finally got Internet access, by printing online sources. Why is this night different from all others? Because on this night copyright doesn’t apply.

In the absence of a stable homeland, Jews have made their home in books, and the Haggadah — whose core is the retelling of the Exodus from Egypt — has been translated more widely, and revised more often, than any other Jewish book. Everywhere Jews have wandered, there have been Haggadot — from the 14th-century Sarajevo Haggadah (which is said to have survived World War II under the floorboards of a mosque, and the siege of Sarajevo in a bank vault), to those made by Ethiopian Jews airlifted to Israel during Operation Moses.

But of the 7,000 known versions, not to mention the countless homemade editions, there is one that is used more than all others combined.

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Eichlers.com recommends Rejoice in Your Festivals

Eichlers.com blog wrote about the  Jewish festival of Shavuot, and the tradition in some Judaica communities to exchange gifts on this holiday. Although Shavuot is one of the few Jewish holidays without any unique mitzvoth in order to observe it, some families exchange gifts during this festival just as the Jewish people received the gift of the Torah.

Today we’re going to feature a book that features thirty-eight separate derashot of Rabbi Zvi Dov Kanotopski. Rejoice in your Festivals: Penetrating Insights into Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot appears to be a great addition to any collection of Jewish books, and promises to provide “new dimensions to our understandstanding and enjoyment” of Shavuot.

From the full description on Eichlers.com:

“At once timeless and timely, many of the derashot were written at historic moments such as the end of World War II and the rescue of Holocaust survivors, the establishment of the State of Israel, and the miraculous Israeli victories against the Arab armies. All of the derashot provide valuable insight and inspiration to help us address the complex challenges we face today as a people and as individuals. “

I highly recommend this to any and all scholars looking to learn more about this wonderful Jewish holiday. And be sure to check out the tremendous selection of Jewish books available at the Eichlers online Judaica store.

AJL Review of In Every Generation: The JDC Haggadah

by Ilka Gordon

In Every Generation: The JDC Haggadah
From the Archives of “The Joint” the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
New York: Devora Publishing, 2010
92 pages $19.95 (9781936068135)

In Every Generation includes the complete Hebrew text of the traditional Haggadah in an easy-to-read and clear font with English translation, some transliterated passages, and instructions on performing the Seder. The Haggadah begins with an informative forward by inspirational author, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. Journalism professor and author Ari Goldman provides historical background on the work of the JDC as well as personal and poignant anecdotes told by Jews assisted by the JDC. What makes this Haggadah unique and very moving are the more than 100 black and white and color photographs from The JDC’s archives which range from 1914 to the present. Each photograph relates to the Haggadah text. The Maggid section of the Haggadah, which begins with the “bread of affliction,” is accompanied by a picture, photographed in the Berlin-Mariendorf DP camp in 1946, of a smiling young girl holding two large handmade matzot supplied by the Joint. Accompanying the Hallel, a prayer of praise, is a photograph of a Rumanian choir taken in 1988 and two young boys, singing in a music class in Odessa, both activities made possible by the Joint. The photographs and anecdotes included in this Haggadah add a modern dimension to the biblical story of the rescue and redemption of the Jewish people. The JDC Haggadah is highly recommended for all libraries, especially synagogue and school libraries. It is also a meaningful Bar or Bat Mitzvah gift.

For the original article on page 22 from AJL Reviews, click here.

Jerusalem Report reviews the JDC Haggadah

by Ralph Amelan

I suspect the publishers of In Every Generation: the JDC Haggadah are not going to thank me for writing that their book is what every Wicked Son needs, but bear with me on this. Firstly, I don’t see this somewhat misunderstood lad as being entirely bad. If he was really sunk in sin, then why would he be at the Seder anyway? But, for whatever reason, he cannot forge a connection with the festival. How can one get through to him?

Forget sweet reason and history lessons. The way to break through is using pictures, not words. Well-composed, emotionally powerful, strong photographs can get messages across very effectively, and this Haggadah has quite a fair selection of them, drawn from the archives of the Joint Distribution Committee, more popularly known as “The Joint,” and illustrating its relief work.

Unsurprisingly, this book is as much a celebration of the Joint as it is of the Seder: the Haggadah text is traditional and interspersed with accounts of the Joint’s endeavors. But it is the photographs that make this book something special. Families in distress clutch their gifts of matza at communal Seders. Refugees stumble on to Israel’s unfamiliar shores. Age-worn hands are clasped over eyes in prayer….

Yet, taken together, these pictures create a warm and attractive world of tradition, family, and the comforting embrace of Jewish concern and assistance at its best. The usual reply to the Wicked Son’s question is to tell him, in effect, to go away. This is wrong: he’s your son, right? Your reply should be to give him this Haggadah, so he can see what he is missing, and be drawn into the celebration. That way, this book will really have a happy ending.

Original review from the Jerusalem Report can be found here.

Ritual and commentary: The Pesach story

by Alan Jay Gerber

Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, in a recent Dvar Torah on Parshat Tazriah noted the following observation: “We have spoken about using speech in a way prohibited by the Torah, one of the ways in which we can use our speech for mitzvoth is relating the story of the exodus from Egypt. Although it is important that we read the text of the Haggadah, we may and are encouraged to add and elaborate on the story of yetzias Mitzrayim, as we say in the Haggadah, ‘the more one relates the story of the exodus, the more praiseworthy is he’.

“It is important to keep in mind that elaborating does not mean pilpulim and chiddushim on the wording of the Haggadah. It may be true that gedolei Torah have written such commentary on the Haggadah, but we must keep in mind that they did not write it during their Seders.”

Rabbi Yosef Marcus editor of the newly published Chabad Haggadah in English by Kehot Publication Society picks up on this same theme wherein he writes in the introduction to his work the following admonition: “The importance of deed in Judaism is well known. One who meditates all night on the concept of matzah but fails to actually eat matzah has of course failed to perform the mitzvah.”

Rabbi Marcus makes the point that the recitation and elaboration of the events historic to this evening’s commemorative must be recited as an addendum to the actual ongoing rituals of the Seder. All commentary is but a sidebar to ritual observance. Nevertheless, it is the commentary that adds a richness and flavor to the evening’s proceedings.

The Kosher Bookworm: Final Pesach Hagadah Roundup

In Every Generation: The JDC Haggadah

by Alan Jay Gerber

A salesperson in a Hebrew bookstore once told me, “I’m tired of seeing so many new Hagadah commentaries published every year. Do not we have enough of the old Hagadahs to learn from?” “There is not a new Hagadah commentary that does not contain new explanations and new insights,” I answered. Indeed, we are told that one who equips himself with the many commentaries that are available, both new and old, is praiseworthy.

This observation is more than just an accurate assessment of what we confront as we visit local book stores. To Rabbi Yitzchok Sender of Chicago, it is a way of life. You see, Rabbi Sender holds the world’s record of having authored four distinct English commentaries on the Hagadah. This is more than what anybody else has achieved to date. Twenty years ago Rabbi Sender authored the first of his comprehensive Commentators’ series of Hagadahs, each to be published by Feldheim Publishers. Each of the succeeding three commentaries was to further add to the plethora of inspiration, midrash, historical data and humor that have helped thousands to better conduct the inspiring seders their families and friends would come to appreciate.

Excerpt from Exodus and Emancipation: Biblical and African-American Slavery

Emancipation Day in Richmond, 1905

Excerpted from Exodus and Emancipation: Biblical and African-American Slavery (Urim Publications) by Kenneth Chelst, 267–275. Used by permission.

Celebrating Gradual Emancipation

The 1820 census recorded 10,088 slaves in New York State. The official end of slavery for this large slave population came on July 4, 1827, leading to another round of celebrations, not just in New York but in neighboring states as well. These celebrations, although also linked to churches, were more secular than the January 1 celebrations. They involved extensive outdoor activities, gun salutes, picnics, and parades. Choir music was less significant than the martial music of the marching band. It was the public dimension of these activities that was part of a process of developing a national community for blacks. It enabled them to enjoy life and freedom as a people in ways that were otherwise impossible in the racist atmosphere still prevalent at the time. Unlike church services, celebrations in public spaces asserted the rights of blacks in the face of the white majority, even if whites were not present. These public celebrations made a statement that not only did African Americans share a skin color for which they had been segregated and subjected to petty and gross oppression, but they also shared a common bond, a sense of community, that itself could be celebrated. They thus shared a communal responsibility to fight both racism in the North and slavery in the South.

Excerpt from Exodus and Emancipation: Biblical and African-American Slavery

Emancipation Celebration

Excerpted from Exodus and Emancipation: Biblical and African-American Slavery (Urim Publications) by Kenneth Chelst, 259–263. Used by permission.

The Eve of Emancipation

The Passover night of expectation has an interesting Civil War parallel: the eve of the confirmation of the Emancipation Proclamation. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln announced a preliminary proclamation and gave one hundred days’ notice that a final proclamation would cover designated states and parts of the states of the South still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. The legality of this war measure was not clear. Many feared that Lincoln would change his mind or delay because of pressures from a variety of sources, including politicians in four border slave states that had not seceded from the Union. Churches in abolitionist strongholds in the North held vigils on New Year’s Eve, singing and praying that Lincoln would stay the course. Blacks placed candles in the windows of their homes. Early on New Year’s Day a large crowd of abolitionists gathered in Boston’s Music Hall. The event included many of America’s greatest poets of the day, including John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who read his poem “Boston Hymn.” In the evening a crowd gathered at Tremont Temple in Boston still waiting to hear affirmation of the original proclamation. Frederick Douglass recounted the scene:

Every moment of waiting chilled our hopes, and strengthened our fears. We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky, which would rend the fetters of four million slaves; we were watching, as it were, by the dim light of the stars, for the dawn of a new day; we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries. Eight, nine, ten o’clock came and went, and still no word. A visible shadow seemed falling on the expecting throng. “It is coming!” “It is on the wires!” Joy and gladness exhausted all forms of expression from shouts of praise, to sobs and tears.

Al-Aqsa Omitted from Pesach Haggadah Cover

Haggadah distributed in Jaffa

by Eli Senyor

Haggadot for Pesach distributed Thursday in kindergartens throughout religiously mixed Jaffa bore a photo of the Temple Mount on the cover, but the al-Aqsa Mosque, which is also located in the east Jerusalem compound, was conspicuously omitted.

An image of a model of the Third Temple was superimposed on the photo in place of the mosque, which is one of Islam’s holiest sites.

It is unclear who distributed the haggadot.

“We’ve seen red lines being crossed in the past, but this is a crossing of all boundaries,” said Kamel Agbaria, chairman of the Ajami neighborhood council.