At the Passover Seder

In our Passover Seder we use the Haggadah illustrated above, with illustrations by the American artist and sculptor Leonard Baskin. His water colors are very delightful and modern. Our Seder this year was short and very nice.

The Seder plate with greens, salt water, charoset,
and a horseradish root. Missing: a shank bone.
These are the symbols used to tell the Passover story during the Seder.

Our table, including the Haggadahs, ready for our guests.
The Seder celebrates the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.

Ritual foods: matzoh, charoset, wine, and the Seder plate.
Charoset is a mixture of fruit, nuts, honey, and wine ground up to represent the mortar that the slaves
used to build the pyramids before they escaped from Egypt. The matzo represents the unleavened bread
that was eaten during the Exodus because the Jews fled so fast that they didn’t have time for bread to rise.

The Haggadah: Traditions of Illustrations and Text

The origins of the Haggadah, the book detailing the order of prayers and readings for the Passover ritual, begin with the rabbis who lived around the third and fourth centuries of the common era. These scholars and sages based some of the rituals on the traditional celebrations of the Passover holiday in the Temple before its destruction. The Haggadah as we know it now includes many additions made during the following centuries. Hand-written Haggadahs in museum collections date to as early as the tenth century, and printed Haggadahs were first produced in the fifteenth century in Soncino, Italy, not long after the introduction of printed books in Europe.

Certain prayers and texts are standard parts of the ritual in every Haggadah, but the exact format and content varies from one version to another. Illustrations are almost always included, making these documents — from the earliest time until the present — very beautiful, historically informative, and extremely enjoyable. Bibliographies of printed Haggadahs include several thousand examples! New versions appear every year.

The Plagues: Boils, pestilence, frogs, and wild animals visited on the Egyptians.
From “The Golden Haggadah,’ 1320. (British Museum)

Illustration of the song "An Only Kid" from a Haggadah by Eliezer Lissitzky , 1917.
The addition of this song to the Seder ritual probably dates from the 15th century.

Page from the Sarajevo Haggadah, 14th century Catalonia.
Top of page: Moses and the Burning Bush.
Bottom of page: Aaron and the Magicians.

A page from a 15th century German Haggadah.
Each of the figures is holding a book: that is, a Haggadah.

Passover is a celebration of freedom, which takes on new meaning each year. Unfortunately, there are always current events that can be interpreted in the context of this holiday, as well as a long history of struggling for freedom from persecution, freedom of worship, and freedom for all people.

Blog post © 2023 mae sander.