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.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 26th, 2010 at 12:24 pm by Ari and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.