How To: Choose A Haggadah

I strongly support point 5 ("assemble your own haggadah") -- there's something tremendously empowering about crafting one's own haggadah, weaving together traditional texts and personal / creative / interpretive material.

Alternately, of course, one could download one of the terrific homegrown haggadot that's available online. (Full disclosure: one of those is mine, "The Velveteen Rabbi's Haggadah for Pesach." But there are plenty of others, too. :-) 

According to Jonathan Sarna, my American Jewish History prof at Brandeis, Maxwell House originally came out with their haggadah as a way to emphasize that their coffee was kosher for Pesach. Since product promotion was their goal, it's no wonder their version is very bare-bones.

I also learned from him that in the 19th century some really r e a l l y Reform guy wrote a haggadah called--get this--Easter Eve. Remember, this was at a time when many American Reform temples held services on Sunday instead of Shabbat, and when a prominent New York temple referred to its daily Maariv (evening service) as "Vespers." Small wonder that version of Reform didn't last. Me, I was raised on the CCAR Haggadah edited by Rabbis W. Gunther Plaut and Chaim Stern. It has the entire traditional Hebrew text (with a few minor changes in wording), plus beautiful painted illustrations and lots of interesting supplemental readings.

I also like The Santa Cruz Haggadah for its cute "big-foot"-style cartoons and its fun neo-hippie approach. And yes, it too includes the full Hebrew text. It even carries an endorsement from the Bostoner Rebbe, of all people.

Having various different haggadot is, with a couple of qualifications (see below) the best way to go.  Participants can compare their different books' translations of a particular passage (e.g., does "vayarei'u otanu hamitzrim" mean that the Egyptians treated us badly, made us evil, or considered us evil?  -- three plausible translations with very different implications for the Egypt experience), and a participant can offer to the group an interesting comment given by the book he/she is using, knowing that it won't already have been seen by everyone else).  If a central component of the seder (and of the mitzva) is to make the Exodus experience come alive through the retelling and the discussing, a multiplicity of perspectives helps achieve that result.

    Qualifications:

    1. Everyone should use a haggada with essentially the same Hebrew text.  Having access to multiple commentaries on the same text is enriching; having different texts is just confusing.  When it's Reuven's turn to read, he either can't tell where we are, or other people can't tell where he is.  This is the most significant drawback to the Rabbinical Assembly haggada ("Feast of Freedom") -- it varies from the traditional text in the midrashim it includes in the Maggid.  As a result, it's difficult to use it in the same seder with a traditional text haggada.  We offer our guests two piles of haggadot, one with the traditional text and one with variant texts, and we tell them that, if they're going to use one of the latter, they should _also_ take one of the former in order to follow along.

    2. There should be one text of which you have multiple copies, and from which you will announce page numbers, if there are any guests who might have trouble keeping track of where you are.  You should suggest to those guests that they use that text.

    3. Even among haggadot with the same text, there may be variations in instructions.  (At what point, exactly, do we refill the cup?  Do we uncover the matza here, and do we lift our cups there?  There are also differences as to the end of the Hallel.)  Hosts should decide in advance which haggada they'll use for these purpose, so its instructions will be followed.