Vanessa L. Ochs | Princeton University Press | 2020

Reviewed by Stu Halpern

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In The Passover Haggadah: A Biography, Vanessa L. Ochs traces the many afterlives of the story of the Exodus. Ochs, a professor of religion at the University of Virginia, stresses the composite nature of the Seder’s text. “The Haggadah,” she notes, “has no single author and no single editor.” It developed into a "commonplace book chronicling generations of verbal, illustrative, and ritual strategies that were considered, in their times and in their places, suitable for the task of transmission” of the story of God’s taking the ancient Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. As the volume emphasizes, the Haggadah is a means to “remember [one’s] way into belonging,” being read, interpreted, and argued over for generations. By 1997, a Haggadah Thesaurus counted 4,715 Haggadot from the beginning of printing until 1960. There are surely hundreds more by now. The Haggadah, the author humorously notes, has most definitely had more wine spilled on it than any book ever published. Ochs surveys versions of the Haggadah both expected and unexpected. Solomon Schechter retrieved 400 Haggadah fragments reflecting the Babylonian tradition and 40 representing traditions from the Land of Israel in his excavation of the Cairo Genizah. In medieval illustrated Haggadot, Ochs writes, images "were neither mere embellishments nor literal and straightforward illustrations of the Passover story and Seder practices. They were the text’s visual partners, serving as both ‘countertext and commentary,’” as art historian Marc Epstein has noted. Often the images reveal more about the time, culture, and context in which the illustrators lived than the text of the Haggadah itself. The use of animals’ heads in what is known as the Birds Head Haggadah, for example, might have been, Ochs suggests based on Epstein, “an interpretive strategy that allowed the readers of this Haggadah to imagine Jews themselves—despite their everyday social and economic marginalization—as individuals who possessed agency and were able to overcome the base depictions of Jews of their day.” Also mentioned is the presence of hare races depicted in some illustrated manuscripts. They are there because the German word for a rabbit race sounds like YakNeHaZ, the Talmud’s mnemonic for the correct order of rituals and blessings that must be added when the Seder occurs on a Saturday night. The ever-present Maxwell House Haggadah is of course included. As Ochs notes with tongue firmly in cheek, “Would we tolerate, much less embrace, a Kleenex Lamentations, or the Lens Crafters Book of Mormon? Could another sacred text come with tear-out inserts: shopping checklists and advertisements for farfel, gefilte fish balls, macaroons, and candied, jellied slices of ‘fruit’?" And yet this commercialized version has become customary for many. Multiple fascinating, lesser-known Haggadot are also described. The Koren Ethiopian Haggada: Journey to Freedom tells the story of the Beta Yisrael and its challenging integration into Israeli society. To stress its American orientation, the Union Haggadah includes a photograph of the 1876 sculpture Religious Liberty (installed in Philadelphia) celebrating American independence by Moses Ezekiel, ironic in light of the artist having served in the Confederate military. Other versions mentioned include the Haggadah illustrated by Arthur Szyk, a 1902 Haggadah handwritten by an Iraqi youth, a 1939 Haggadah from Vienna, Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust-focused rendering, and Rabbi Menachem Kasher’s suggestion that drinking a fifth cup of wine be designated as a new ritual to thank God for the establishment of the state of Israel. Ochs' analysis sometimes misses the mark. Is the Haggadah really to be faulted, as she claims, for being liturgically imperfect, and leaving readers with “little edification and little incentive to learn more”? By whose standards? She also decries the Haggadah’s inability to provide solace for those whose “cries [for freedom] were not heeded”—though no text can possibly offer salvation in response to all pleas. Criticisms aside, Ochs is no doubt plausible in positing that “In years to come, even new technologies will enter the Haggadah. Wearing special glasses, one’s text may reveal life-sized speaking holograms of virtual slaves in Egypt along with relatives who have passed on. A Haggadah portal may enable a Chad Gadya sing-along in all the world’s languages.” Though that technology has not yet been designed, as the Haggadah reminds us in its aspiration for a rebuilt Jerusalem, there’s always next year. To read more Straus Center book reviews, click here. You can learn more about the Straus Center and sign up for our newsletter here. Be sure to also like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram and connect with us on LinkedIn.