Bible Quotation, Embellished Through
Centuries, Is Basis of Seder Service

By RUTH L. CASSEL

When Jewish families the world
over gather about their festive
tables Saturday and Sunday eve-
ning for the Passover Sedorim, they
will be fulfilling the Biblical ad-
juration : "And thou shalt tell thy
son in that day, saying, It is be-
cause of that which the Lord did
for me when I came forth out -of
Egypt."
Like so much of Judaism, a
wealth of ritual, law, commentary
and legend has evolved from a brief
Bible quotation. The ceremonies of

the Seder, or "order of services" which

precedes and follows the Passover feast,
date back to the period of the Second
Temple, at the beginning of the Com-
mon Era. In those days, the rite of
the sacrifiCe of the paschal lamb was
still observed in the Temple, and each
family was bidden to partake •of a
portion of the sacrificial animal. A
lively family discussion ensued, in
which the story of the Exodus from
Egypt was recounted.
* * *
SOME OF THE basic elements of the
modern Seder service are found in the
Mishnah, written in the third century
C.E. In the hundreds of years since
then, the basic story of the Exodus has
been surrounded by appropriate leg-
ends, commentary, prayers and songs.
These are compiled in the book by
which the Seder is conducted,' the
Haggadah, a name derived from the
Hebrew verb hagged, to tell.
The Hagaddah, in addition to

providing a guide for the Seder, is
designed to help make the festivities
attractive. to the children by use of
illustrations. The earliest extant
Hagaddah manuscripts go back to
the 13th Century. Handwritten, they
are beautifully illuminated and let-
tered with great care. The colorful
designs of flowers, landscapes and
scenes were woven about entire
Words, since Hebrew has no capital
letters.

Joshua Solomon of SoneImo is cred-

moral. A manuscript in the Bibli-
otheque Nationale, Paris, shows a
father demonstrating the bitter herbs
and pointing simultaneously to his
wife, in reference to the quotation
from Ecclesiastes: "And I find more
bitter than death the woman."

number for all eastern European
peoples.

There are varying reasons for the
drinking of four cups of wine. It is
reputedly in reference to the four ex-
pressions used in the Book of Exodus
to describe God's deliverance of Israel

A Haggadah in the German National
Museum, Nuremberg (pre-Nazi) warn-
ing the celebrant against excessive im-
bibing of the sacramental wine, por-
trays a drunken man behaving in an
unseemly manner.
- Favorite subjects for Haggadah illus-
trations are the Four Sons, the Ten
Plagues, Crossing of the Red Sea, or
the preparation for the Seder, such
as baking the matzoh, searching for
hometz or the actual Seder table.

* * *

NEARLY ALL illustrated Haggadoth

published until the beginning of the
20th century are reprints and re-
editions of two Amsterdam editions of
the 17th century.
Recently, however, magnificently
illustrated and illuminated volumes
have been published, many in color.
Among these are the famous Saul
Raskin edition, with numerous full-
page black and white etchings, pub-
lished in 1941 as a companion piece to
his illustrated Pirke Abot; and the
rare Arthur Szyk-Cecil Roth all-
Hebrew edition, published in London in
1941.
Only 85 copies of the latter exist,

since it is printed on vellum, hand-
sewn and hand-bound in leather.
Szyk's colored • miniatures and bor-
ders are considered rare examples of
the modern interpretation of the
classic art of illumination.

Other recent and notable editions of
the Passover book include a children's
Haggadah published in London in
1948, with text in Hebrew and English
and extensive modern-costume color
illustrations, with such features as re-
volving page inserts and "moving" pic-
tures to keep the children's attention.
An all-Hebrew edition, with colored
illumination by Kafra, was published
last year in New York by Feldheim.
Also in 1949, Shulsinger Bros. in New

One of the most joyous parts of
the Seder service is the singing of
festival songs. Here, a group of new
Americans sings of the holiday Of
freedom in their new-found land
of freedom.

from Egypt, or to the four scriptual
passages alluding to- days to come
when "the wicked will be made to
drink from the cup of God's wrath,"
or to the four Bibical passages men-
tioning the cup of comfort and sal-
vation proffered by God unto the
faithful, or to the four monarchies
which are to precede the final redemp-
tion, or even to the four mentions of
Pharoah's cup in the dream inter-
preted by Joseph.
There may be interesting confusion
in the Sedorim in Israel this year, in
the camps and settlements where the
Jews of Yemen reside, since the Ye-
minites are accustomed to drinking
five, instead of four cups of wine.

4, * •
ONE OF THE HIGHLIGHTS of the

Seder is the recitation of the Four
Questions, by the youngest at the table.
To the children is given the privilege
of introducing the actual Seder service,
since the reply to the questions is al-
ways the - beginning of the major por-
tion of the ritual, the recitation of the
story of the Exodus.
Originally, there were only three
questions. The fourth, concerning the
custom of leaning, was added after
the Jews had contact with the Roman
empire, since leaning or lounging on
couches at the table was a particularly
Roman custom. Leaning also is consid-
ered a mark of the free man and was
instituted at the Seder to mark the
beginning of freedom for the Hebrews.
Also in the listing-by-four category
is the parable of the four sons. Four

groups of Jews it is customary to pre.

serve a piece of the Matzoh from year
to year, either in the Haggadah or on
the person, "to guard against the evil
eye."
Following the meal, the celebrants
fling open the door of the house to
welcome the prophet Elijah, who is said
to "watch over" the people Israel that
night. Legend has it that the ancient
seer visits each home- and drinks of
the special cup , of wine which has
been awaiting_him on the Seder table.
Originally the door was left open
throughout the service, from the open-
ing passage in which the leader chants
"Let all who are hungry come and
eat. Let all who are in want come and
celebrate the Passover with us." That
was meant literally, and many well-to-
do families, brought the poor or travel-'
er into their homes for the Seder.
In the Middle Ages, the door was
opened so that Christian observers
might witness the complete innocence
of the Seder ritual and squelch the
ugly "ritual blood" accusations.
Another legend declares that if an
unmarried male visitor should enter
the home while the door is open for
Elijah he will marry a daughter of the

house.

* * *
THE LATTER PORTION of the Seder

is made up of songs and poems which
have been developed through the cen-
turies around the Passover theme. One
of the most familiar, the dAddirHU"
dates from the 15th century. In Ger-
many it was used to conclude the serv-
ice.
"Addir Hu" is an alphabetical acros-
tic enumerating the attributes of God.
Curiously, the same attributes, and in
the same order, are accorded the bride-
groom in a moderneYemenite wedding
song.

Again, the service is designed to
keep the attention of the children.
Many a child who might' drowse
through the pages of rabbinical
commentary is wide awike for the
chanting of the Aram
_ aic "Chad Gad-
ya," "An Only Hid."

This song, similar to the "House That
Jack Built" type of verse, goes back to
the 16th century. It is said to repre-
sent an allegorical history of Israel:
The kid is the people Israel, purchased
by God for two tables of the covenant;
the cat' represents Assyria; the dog,
Babylon; the stick, Persia; the • fire,
Greece; water, Rome; the ox, the Sar-
acens; the butcher, the Crusaders, and
the angel of death the Turkish donfi.
nation of Palestine.

times, in the Bible, mention is made
of "thy son's" inquiry into the mean-
ing of Passover, but each time the
question is framed differently.

This is a specimen page of • the
Arthur Szyk, edited by Cecil Roth.

ited with the first printed edition of
Jewish liturgical works, including. the
Seder service. The first separate print-
ed Hagaddah now believed to be in ex-
istence dates from 1505.
These early printed works were often
illustrated with wood-cut drawings,
which were an innovation in Jewish
art, . since Jewish artists, following to
the letter the second commandment
against graven images, seldom drew
the human body. The Haggadah, how-
ever, being only a semi-religious book
and used only in the home, not the
synagogue, bore illustrations including
humans.

* * *
IT IS ESTIMATED that more than

1,000 editions of the Hagaddah have

been issued to - this day. In 1512, an

edition was printed in Latin, for the
benefit of non-Jews, There are now
translations in all languages. Early
authorities lauded the practice of in-
terpreting the ritual in the vernacular
as the service proceeded, primarily to
benefit the women and children.

Pathos, charm and humor are all
found in abundance in Haggadah
illustrations. Some even point a

famous

illuminated

Haggadah by

York put out a Hebrew-Yiddish edi-
tion, translated by Abraham Regelson
and illustrated by Siegmund Forst,
which combines modern and old-time
illustrations.

* * 4,
IT IS PROBABLE that the large

majority of Haggadoth in use today
in this country are bi-lingual--either
Hebrew - Yiddish or Hebrew - English.
Orthodox and Conservative families,
holding two consecutive Sedorim, use
the same Haggadah for each, with only
minor alterations in the service. Re-
form families conduct only one Seder,
and follow the abbreviated English
Haggadah published by the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations. An-
other interesting edition is the Reton-
structionist Haggadah, edited by Prof.
Mordecai Kaplan, in Hebrew and Eng-
lish, which modernizes the services and
is used by many Conservative families.

A survey of the major features of
the Seder ritual indicates the im-
portance of the number four—four
cups of wine, four questions asked
by the youngest child, the legend of
me four sons. Some authorities be-
lieve that four - was a mystic, holy

The rabbis have taken this variance
to designate four types of sons, the
wise son, the wicked son, the simple
son, and the son who is una_ le or too
young to inquire. Each is to be an-
swered in accordance with the char-
acter of his query. It is interesting to
note that in illustrated Haggadoth,
thy, wicked son is almost always pic-
tured as a soldier, indicative of the
Jewish abhorrence of -war. In one edi-
tion, published in Germany in 1932,
the wicked son was pictured as a Hit-
ler Youth.
* *
STILL ANOTHER feature of the
Seder which captures the attention of
thc children is the tradition Surround-
ing the Afikomen, that half-square of
Matzoh which was laid aside early in
the service with the recitation of the
Aramaic "Ho lachmoh anyoh . . .,"
"Lo, this is the bread of affliction . . ."
That piece of unleavened bread is
called "afikomen," from the Greek
word meaning dessert, and is intended
to be eaten at the conclusion of the
Seder meal.

If has become customary, however,
for a child to stealthily remove the
Afikomen from its resting place in
the leader's cushions, and to return
it only upon promise of a gift or
,prize. In some families, where there
care several children, the adults
"steal" the Afikomen and hide it. The
child who finds it is awarded a prize.

Superstition credits the afikomen
with good luck qualifies. Among some

4

The title page of "Had Gadya,"
an edition of the Seder rhyme done

in colored lithographs by the Rus-
sian artist Eliezer Lissitzky, from
the collection of Elliot E. Cohen.

Inasmuch as the Seder ritual in use
today is a composite -of centuries of
practice, it is very likely that in future
years the Haggadah may include new
insertions referring to the events of
today, the "second Exodus" of 'Jewry
from enslavement to freedom.
The Seder began with a statement
from the Bible. As we observe it this
weekend, we may consider it not only
as a highlight of the religious calen-
dar and a festive occasion, but as an
important link between countless gen-
erations of Jews through the centuries,
each of which has left its imprint on
this important observance.

- 6 — THE JEWISH NEWS

Friday, March 31, 1950

1

