The Recent Haggadah Glut Does Not Demonstrate Jewish Self-Hatred

by: Hannah Farber

Wed Apr 23, 2008 at 15:07:58 PM EDT

On Slate this week, they're recycling a 2007 piece by Mark Oppenheimer protesting the 21st century's profusion of Haggadot.

I recognize that to some degree, the sentiment behind this argument is cousin to Jill's surprise at discovering how cluttered the progressive Seder plate has become.

But I couldn't disagree more with the argument itself, which hinges on the theory that Jews keep reinventing Passover because they're uncomfortable with Judaism.

The diversity of Haggadot is a symptom of the unease that many Jews feel about Judaism. For some, the unease is political: Passover is a holiday about liberation, so the Haggadah has special meaning to those who feel that Judaism today is insufficiently attentive to left-wing political causes. For others, the unease is just a species of what all secular Americans feel around religious tradition, and Jews like this are always looking for a Haggadah that is "contemporary" or "relevant" enough to produce religious sentiment with a minimum of embarrassment.

 I actually can't think of a better sign of spiritual health than that so many people (ranging from the glitziest nouveau-Kabbalists to the crunchiest secular activists) are rewriting and reinventing and relearning Jewish ritual texts. Think of all the steps that have to go into this:

1. Someone has to CARE about Passover.
2. Someone has to care about what the traditional Jewish texts say about Passover.
3. Someone has to construct a thesis of some kind of how these texts ought to be modified to better suit present circumstances.
4. Someone has to go back to the old texts, splice them in with some new sources, and compile and edit a new Haggadah.
5. Someone has to pay for the publishing of these new Haggadot.

Inevitably, this leads to where we are today, step 6:

6.    Someone has to complain about how these new Haggadot are problematic and how they suggest the continuing decline of the Jewish people.

Supposing the decades were reversed, and the past decades' Haggadah glut had recently collapsed into a community-wide consensus on the Maxwell House Haggadah that Oppenheimer cites so fondly. Wouldn't we be arguing that this was an eerie turn of events that probably reflected spiritual poverty?

Come to think of it, wouldn't the people who was truly 'embarrassed' by Jewish traditional practices probably avoid writing new Jewish texts with their names on the covers?

As I see it, adding, editing, republishing, (and yes, kibitzing)  are actually all acts of the deepest kind of love - the love that keeps a tradition and a communal conversation alive.

What's more, the traditional sources (I'm so amused that these now include the Maxwell House Haggadot) are still out there. Nobody's burning them. The next generation will probably reclaim them just to frighten their parents.

But one final worry:

What if one family uses a Haggadah that focuses on vegetarianism, while another reads from one about Palestinian liberation? Both noble causes, to be sure—but are the families celebrating the same holiday? If they're not, then when their children marry someday (after a touching courtship commenced when they were counselors at a Jewish summer camp), will they see Passover as shared cultural patrimony, something that unites them, or will they have fraught quarrels about which version of the holiday to pass on to their children?

Let's say the worst case scenario comes about, and this couple has to actually write their own Haggadah together before they can celebrate Passover. Whether or not you'd agree with the content of the Haggadah they'd come up with, I honestly can't think of anything that would be Better For The Jews than a new family taking on that kind of project.