Word: haggadah
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...half a century, though, some of the rich and magical aspects of the Passover celebration have not been encouraged among the hundreds of thousands of Reform Jews in North America. Some Reform Jews used other texts, of course, but since 1923 their official Haggadah has offered a resolutely rational and somewhat wan celebration of the Seder. It held no reference, for example, to the ten plagues, because, as one Reform authority now sheepishly explains, the plagues were considered "unworthy of enlightened sensitivities." The climactic, ringing phrase "Next year in Jerusalem!" was omitted too. It seemed overly Zionist to many Reform...
...this night different from all other nights?" a child would ask at the Seder, the ritual meal on the first night of the week-long feast. Why the matzo? Why the bitter herbs? Then, as the family followed the rites set down in the Haggadah (literally, a "telling"), the old story would unfold: the bitter slavery under the Pharaoh and God's scourging of Egypt with plagues until the children of Israel were set free. And always, that last terrible plague, when the wrath of God slew the first-born of every Egyptian but passed over the houses...
This year North America's 1.1 million temple-affiliated Reform Jews have taken a giant step back into tradition. Their rabbinical body, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, has issued a new Haggadah, copiously and dramatically illustrated, that restores the old sense of ritual to the ancient celebration that begins this week. The plagues are back, though with a difference ("Our triumph is diminished by the slaughter of the foe"), and so is the closing wish for reunion in Jerusalem. The revised rite even endorses a search for the hametz, in which pieces of leavened bread are hidden...
...organizers and Protestant ministers. In Miami Beach, the ads for a kosher hotel promise not only an olympic-size saltwater swimming pool, but also "Passover Specials" in room rates and a cantor and choir for Seder services. In Connecticut, a self-proclaimed congregation of Jewish humanists fashions a Passover Haggadah (the Seder narrative) that manages to avoid any mention of God. In Manhattan, an ecumenical group of friends sits down to a classic Seder meal including the symbolic foods: matzoth, bitter herbs and haunch of spring lamb. After reading the Haggadah, the group invites one of the Christians present...
Raphael also provides the full Hebrew-Aramaic text of the Haggadah, along with his own English version. For the translation of the Bible narrative he eschews modern editions in favor of the King James Version, because it preserves the "loving intimacy which the rabbis had with the original." But when it comes to the Haggadah's blessings, prayers and songs, he applies a free hand, as in his cheerful rendering of this favorite from 7th century Palestine...