The Passover Haggadah

Synopsis

The life and times of a treasured book read by generations of Jewish families at the seder tableEvery year at Passover, Jews around the world gather for the seder, a festive meal where family and friends cometogether to sing, pray, and enjoy traditional food while retelling the biblical story of the Exodus. The PassoverHaggadah provides the script for the meal and is a religious text unlike any other. It is the only sacred book available inso many varieties—from the Maxwell House edition of the 1930s to the countercultural Freedom Seder—and it is therare liturgical work that allows people with limited knowledge to conduct a complex religious service. The Haggadahis also the only religious book given away for free at grocery stores as a promotion. Vanessa Ochs tells the story of thisbeloved book, from its emergence in antiquity as an oral practice to its vibrant proliferation today.Ochs provides a lively and incisive account of how the foundational Jewish narrative of liberation is rememberedin the Haggadah. She discusses the book’s origins in biblical and rabbinical literature, its flourishing in illuminatedmanuscripts in the medieval period, and its mass production with the advent of the printing press. She looks atHaggadot created on the kibbutz, those reflecting the Holocaust, feminist and LGBTQ-themed Haggadot, and evenone featuring a popular television show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Ochs shows how this enduring work of liturgythat once served to transmit Jewish identity in Jewish settings continues to be reinterpreted and reimagined to sharethe message of freedom for all.