If you look long enough at haggadah illustrations, you will notice that when it comes to the four sons, the wicked son has spent several centuries being depicted as a warrior. (The weapons and the uniform change in time and place, but the essence is the same). This shows of course Judaism’s commendable opposition to violence as a solution to the world’s problems. Interestingly enough there appears to have been a shift away from this trend in the 20th century. Perhaps a warrior is no longer as negative since warfare has changed in both purpose and method. Perhaps other things have begin to preoccupy us as “evil” with the decline in warfare the late 20th century has brought about. Or perhaps there’s another reason entirely. In the Szyk haggadah, a beautifully illustrated haggadah done by Marvin Szyk in 1930s Poland, he depicted the wicked son as German, complete with Hitler mustache. Szyk’s original haggadah was very anti-Nazi in many ways (most of which were actually censored by the publisher), and it seems clear that he did not view the warrior-Jew as wicked. Perhaps this is the paradigm change that changed the standard illustration of the wicked son in the haggadah.

This is a brief followup on an older post about my troubles finding a haggadah. What I realized is that there are two main types of haggadah commentary – one is where the author presents new commentaries and thoughts based on the text. The second is where the author quotes previous sources (mishnah, talmud, rishonim, etc.). Due to the nature of the haggadah as a historical work, I have a strong preference for the second – I want the commentary to quote the mishnah, gemarah, tosefta, and occasional rishon to put the haggadah in it’s proper context. When we recite “avadim hayinu” it would be nice if the haggadah explained the talmudic dispute between rav and shmuel on how we should address “disgrace” in the haggadah – is it by talking about slavery (physical disgrace) or how our ancestors were idolaters (spiritual disgrace)? (The answer of course is that we can’t decide so we do both).

I did eventually find a haggadah I liked – the Schocken haggadah. It’s dense enough to be usable at the seder, the English translation is good and readable, and the layout is easy to follow. The pictures are almost entirely artwork taken from classic middle ages haggadahs. (I recognize many of them from Haggadah and History by Yosef Haim Yerushalmi). The commentary is classic, consisting almost entirely of sources from the torah, mishnah, talmud, and the occasional rishon. Where historical context helps explain a passage, Glatzer (the author) does not hesitate to do so. Although it has also been out of print for some time, its use as a textbook by many universities has left enough used copies available on the web that I could quickly order 15 of them from a variety of sources. Interestingly enough, due to both the limited supply and the fact that many used book marketplaces mirror content (for example, people that sell on amazon marketplace also list their books on ebay, alibris, and abebooks), I have singlehandedly created enough demand for the book to triple its current asking price.

In the torah matzah is called לֶחֶם עֹנִי – usually rendered in English as poor man’s bread or bread of affliction. In the gemarah (pesachim 115b) shmuel comes up with a creative interpretation of this – he says that it is called lehem oni because we say (עונין) things on it. A baraita is then related that supports shmuel’s position. The second interpretation, that of oni meaning “poor” is then taught anonymously explaining that just as a poor man does not get a whole loaf of bread, so too we do not get a whole loaf of bread (referring, I assume, to the broken middle matzah).

I heard a lecture by rabbi Wieder entitled “halakhic responses to textual variants”.(It was a very good lecture – here’s his source sheet if you’re curious). At the end he touched upon the origins of the baraita of the four sons found in the haggadah which is something I talked about in my pesach talk last year.

First some quick background for those of you who don’t want to bother reading through the links above. The baraita of the four sons has two origins – the talmud yerushalmi, or the mekhilta. You can see them in their entirety in the source sheet, but for now I just want to focus on the wise son’s question.

Both the yerushalmi and the mekhilta have the same question for the wise son:

בן חכם מהו אומר (דברים ו) מה העדות והחקים והמשפטים אשר צוה ה’ אלהינו אותנו

The wise son – what does he say? “What is this work, the laws, and customs that our god has commanded us“.

The problem of course is that the son’s questions all come from the torah, and our text is a little different:

מָה הָעֵדֹת, וְהַחֻקִּים וְהַמִּשְׁפָּטִים, אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ, אֶתְכֶם.

What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which the lord our God hath commanded you?

Our haggadahs all modify the original baraita to use the word “you” for the wise son. This of course erases the key distinction between the wise son and the wicked son who is heavily chastised for using the word “you” and excluding himself from the community. Rb. Wieder thought that this showed that the rabbis of the talmud and midrash were using a textual variant. (Which, if you look at his notes, is one of many such examples).

The only explanation I’d heard for the discrepancy before was the explanation advanced by David Tzvi Hoffman and quoted by Menachem Mendel Kasher in haggadah sheleimah (the greatest compendium of haggadah commentary ever). Hoffman points out that in devarim Moshe is speaking to the people, so it makes complete sense for Moshe to say “you”, and he is not excluding himself from the community, it’s just that Moshe is speaking to the people and his whole speech is in the second person.

This will be our first year hosting a Pesach seder. One of the things I realized I needed was hagaddahs. While I actually have an impressive hagaddah collection, most are scholarly works or rabbinic commentaries on the seder, usually featuring no English and one sentence of actual hagaddah text per page. Needless to say most won’t be great for actually using at a seder, especially by the assembled guests, some of whom may not read Hebrew. I set out to the local Jewish bookstore today to find a hagaddah that:

1. Had the traditional Hebrew text with an accurate English translation.
2. Was cheap enough to allow me to buy a dozen of them without breaking the bank.
3. Was something a little more than just the printed text. I realize I could get the plain boring yellow and brown ones we used in elementary school for about a dollar each, but they have no pictures, no commentary, and nothing to spark discussion. Passover discussions are amongst my favorite things in the Jewish calendar, and I’ve found that using a boring hagaddah is not inspiring.
4. Was still focused mainly on the text so a person could reasonably use it during the seder without having to turn the page every four words.

When I got there I could not find a single hagaddah that matched my criteria. When I asked the guy who worked there for some assistance he pointed me to the artscoll hagaddahs. Ugh. I explained that I wanted a translation that would be “accurate” and a commentary that would reflect “the truth” and he chuckled and sighed. There were some great hagaddahs there, including recent publications by Rb. Lamm and Rb. Soloveitchick, but none of those are really useable at a seder – they’re references for another time. I eventually found a hagaddah I liked – it was the Sinai Hagadah (their spelling, not mine), and it was published by Feldheim. The translation was accurate, the commentary was good and even used historical sources to make lucid points (shhh – don’t tell Artscroll). Unfortunately, it has been out of print for 20 years, and they only had 2 copies in stock. I’ve been searching the web and only managed to come up with five more copies available on my favorite used and Jewish book websites. The currently seder crowd is going to be between 9 and 15 so that won’t cut it.

The most infuriating part is that it just seems we’ve completely gone completely over to the artscroll side. The only people who read non-artscroll books are the minority who have a real passion and a desire to aquire a high level of Jewish education on the side. Mean while all our baseline MO Jewish practices – prayer in shul, participating in a seder, etc., have all been given over to artscroll. Grrrrrr.

Anyone have any ideas?