Modern Voices Join in the Telling of an Ancient Tale

When Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson packed up this week for a Passover retreat in Ojai, he took along extra boxes of books that reflect the variety of Jewish thought and life.

Besides the Haggadah he will use as the main text at tonight’s Seder service and dinner at Camp Ramah, the rabbi is bringing about 35 other widely varying versions of the book that tells the story of Jews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt. Among his Haggadot are a reprint of a medieval manuscript; more modern ones from China, India, Mexico and Israel; texts from the four main movements of American Judaism; and some from more countercultural viewpoints.

“Part of freedom is being able to learn from a wide variety of perspectives,” said Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, which is part of the Conservative movement. “If all we have done is get rid of Pharaoh and then we have another tyrant clamping down on us, that to me is not what liberation is about.”

Diversity in Haggadot is something of an understatement these days. More than any other ritual book in Jewish life, the Haggadah -- the word means “the telling” -- has been redrawn, rethought and repackaged, experts say.

The basics usually remain: the blessings of the matzo and bitter herbs, the Four Questions, the four cups of wine, the recitation of the plagues, the tongue-twisting songs after dinner and the final exhortation of “Next Year in Jerusalem.” But with different commentaries, flashy artwork and philosophies veering from ultra Orthodox to New Age, Haggadot continue to be published for what many consider the most widely celebrated holiday in the Jewish calendar.

“The number of Haggadot continues to grow and grow and grow,” said Avrom Fox, owner of Rosenblum’s World of Judaica bookstore in Chicago and its related website, www.AllJudaica.com. When he took it over 15 years ago, the businesses carried about 20 editions; today it has about 350, ranging in price from $2 for little paperbacks to limited-edition artistic creations for $185.

Along with traditional all-Hebrew Orthodox texts, Fox’s store offers Haggadot in bilingual editions for Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Jews and mainly English texts for children, vegetarians, Cabalists, feminists, ecumenists and lesbians.

Some books streamline the otherwise lengthy Seder evening or highlight the supplemental teachings of a particular rabbi. But some include just a minimum of the biblical Exodus story and use it as a universal metaphor for struggles against intolerance, poverty, AIDS or war.

Fox said he has had to fend off criticism from Orthodox Jews for stocking those more liberal interpretations. “My job philosophically is to include everybody, exclude nobody,” said Fox, who describes himself as modern Orthodox.

In the Orthodox community, there also is great variety of Haggadot. The Orthodox-oriented 613 the Mitzvah Store, at 9400 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles, carries about 200 versions. Customers buy new ones mainly because of the rabbinical commentaries printed below or next to the main texts and prayers.

“People are always looking for the newest Haggadah. They want the new insights to analyze in depth,” said shop owner Rabbi Shimon Kraft. Some people prepare weeks in advance to jump from book to book during the Seder, he said.

In his seminal 1975 survey of the books and their artwork dating back to the 15th century, “Haggadah and History,” Columbia University history professor Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi estimated that at least 3,500 editions of Haggadot existed.

Those numbers, he wrote, keep rising partly because a Haggadah is “a notoriously perishable item, readily vulnerable to the stains of spilled wine, the hands of inquisitive children and other normal hazards of the festive meal.”

Reached last week via e-mail, Yerushalmi said he did not know how many editions have been added in the last 30 years but said new ones accommodate different views of Judaism and the talents of artists.

Some recent editions are:

* “The Jewish World Family Haggadah.” This 90-page paperback for $9.95 features photographs by Zion Ozeri of Jews from Mexico to Uzbekistan, Morocco to India. Its streamlined mainly English text, edited by Shoshana Silberman, includes traditional and liberal commentaries and both Ashkenazic and Sephardic customs.

* “The Moriah Haggadah.” At $150, more a coffee table book than anything exposable to spilled horseradish, this lavishly illustrated, 223-page hardback continues a centuries-old tradition of illuminated Haggadot. Many of the bright watercolors by contemporary Israeli artist Avner Moriah are in a circular form, resembling a Seder plate, and are intended to reflect the cycles of Jewish history and life. It includes Hebrew calligraphy by Izzy Pludwinski and English commentary by Rabbi Shlomo Fox.

* “Light of Redemption: A Passover Haggadah Based on the Writings of Rav Kook” by Gideon Weitzman. In Hebrew and English, the 159-page hardback, listed at $24.95, features the Zionist and mystic insights of Rabbi Avraham Kook, the first chief Ashkenazi rabbi of modern Palestine.

* “Women at the Seder” by Joel Wolowelsky. Surrounding an otherwise traditional Orthodox text, this 106-page hardback, for $16.95, focuses on commentary by and about women and their roles in the holiday and Jewish life. The Four Children in the Seder service -- the wise, the wicked, the simple and the one who cannot ask a question -- are usually depicted as boys. Here, they are drawn as modern-looking girls; the wicked one is smoking a cigarette.

* “The Holistic Haggadah: How Will You Be Different This Passover Night” by Michael L. Kagan has the yin-yang symbol on its cover. The 240-page hardback, listed for $24.95, surrounds ancient texts with modern spiritual ponderings. “Give your inner child a voice. Let it ask the questions,” it urges at the Four Questions, usually recited by youngest child at the table.

Many shoppers for new Haggadot, often newlyweds or young parents, are holding their first Seders with some anxiety, according to Andrew Fish, marketing director of the Gallery Judaica, 1312 Westwood Blvd., Los Angeles. They may purchase 15 or 20 of the same edition for their guests; they are not as interested in the book’s philosophy as in making sure the Haggadah “is going to explain everything and is not going to leave it up to guesswork,” he said.

The most popular of the 10 editions the Westwood store carries, Fish said, is “A Family Haggadah II” by Silberman with colorful illustrations by Katherine Janus Kahn. The 64-page paperback keeps the essential rituals, shortens the text and has facing commentary that reflects such influences as the Holocaust and modern Israel. A sample question: “What are some things that presently plague us?”

Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark of Temple Beth Ohr in La Mirada said his Reform congregation will use “The Concise Family Seder” Haggadah by Rabbi Alfred Kolatch and supplement it with printed handouts from various sources at its community Seder on Sunday night.

“It’s a long evening,” Goldmark, former president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, said of Seder nights. And Seder leaders want to ensure that guests around the table stay interested.

“You keep on thinking of ways to update the material to keep it fresh and alive for the time you are living in,” he said.