Opening the Door for Elijah

By SHIRA DICKER

A DIFFERENT NIGHT
The Family Participation Haggadah
By David Dishon and Noam Zion.
160 pages. Shalom Hartman Institute. $17.95.

PASSOVER HAGGADAH WITH A TRADITIONAL AND CONTEMPORARY COMMENTARY
By Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.
Ktav Publishing House. $9.95.

Passover could not have arrived at a better time this year. Though considered "early," according to the secular calendar, it feels almost overdue to a people plagued by terrorism, dogged by the Angel of Death and enslaved by sadness, despair and fear.

How desperately we need this holiday, with its message of hope, liberation and redemption!

It is scarcely believable how radically the world has changed since Passover 5761 (2001). Last year at this time, the cataclysm of September 11th had yet to happen. Even with the violence of the Al-Aksa intifada raging on for seven months, the world was still in a state of relative innocence...or ignorance.

Last Passover, saddened by the situation in Israel, I found myself driven to stage a Seder unlike any other I had ever experienced. Bopping in and out of Just-A-Buck stores, I tracked down felt frogs, plastic insects, red marbles, plush snakes. Raiding my children's bedrooms, I removed stuffed lions, bears and other wild beasts. Enlisting the help of my curious kids, we fashioned aluminum foil into mock-hailstones. We arranged old Barbie and Ken dolls in supine poses and wrapped them like mummies. We gathered books on ancient Egypt from our family's bookcases.

Half an hour before the Seder, the living room of our apartment was like a Broadway dressing room. Strewn on couches were scarves and vests, billowy pants and peasant blouses, sashes, wigs, palettes of theatrical make-up, bobby and safety pins and striped dishtowels that look vaguely Egyptian when placed upon one's head.

In less than thirty minutes, six 21st century New Yorkers were transformed into Moses, Miriam, Pharaoh, Amram, Yocheved and Batya, the daughter of Pharaoh. (Aaron was absent because my sixteen year old son preferred to be a bad guy, in this case, Pharaoh.)

Gathering at the table, we were suffused with a joyous sense of common purpose. The resulting Seder—conducted around a table liberally littered with frogs, insects, hailstones, wild animals, tambourines, sheet music from The Prince of Egypt and a CD of Handel's Israel in Egypt, as well as other artifacts of the Passover epic—was a live-action oratorio, a piece of performance art so marvelously silly and spiritual that we hardly felt fatigued when the clock ticked past midnight.

While coming in drag may not be your style, to help orchestrate your own memorable Seder, innumerable haggadot fill the shelves of mainstream and Judaica bookstores, each catering to a specific sensibility. In most traditional haggadot, the basic text remains the same; what makes each book unique are its visuals and commentary.

Of the dozens of haggadot on the market, two are especially relevant for Passover 5762 (2002), both written by well-known Jewish thinkers currently living in Israel. They are A Different Night, by Noam Zion and David Dishon and The Passover Haggadah by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.

These two haggadot, like most good ones, beg to be regarded as dynamic rather than static texts. With the opening pages of each, the authors implore the Seder-goers to interact with the drama, poetry and philosophy of the haggadah, to infuse the words and tales with new life and meaning.

From a visual point of view, the two works are entirely dissimilar. The Riskin text is small, devoid of graphic interest and bears a rather pedestrian cover. On the other hand, the Zion/Dishon work is oversized, lush, beautifully produced and filled with riveting visuals.

However, if one can leave aesthetic considerations aside, the Riskin haggadah is filled with marvelous insights, memorable midrashim, loads of historical detail and ample explanation for the rituals of the evening. Especially noteworthy are his stories of refuseniks in the former Soviet Union, his thoughts on the sanctity of time and his discussions of the metaphysical aspects of liberation. Rabbi Riskin provides alternative meanings for many traditional words (for instance, according to Onkelos, a Biblical commentator, Passover means "having mercy,") and ably explains the many angles to the confusing commandment that we perceive ourselves as having personally been liberated from Egypt.

Published more recently, the Zion/Dishon work has fast become a favorite of devoted Seder-goers. With its creative layout, use of art and illustration, and inclusive commentary, A Different Night, is an ideal haggadah for Seders with participants of different religious backgrounds. Filled with charming line-drawings by Tanya Zion, the work also has reproductions of work by Ben Shahn, Rembrandt and Otto Geismar, and a truly eclectic collection of writings by such notables as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Leonard Fein, Anne Frank, Rabbi Joachim Prinz and Viktor Frankl.

In this frightening and confusing time, the Passover haggadah serves as a lens through which recent events might be viewed. My brothers and sisters, the hagaddah tells us, we are once again in Egypt, Mitzrayim—a narrow place, full of woes. Fear not, for we have been here before. Don't forget about the promise of Elijah. And if suffering is our history, so, too, is redemption.

Reprinted with permission from the AVI CHAI Bookshelf, where birthright israel alumni can order free books and periodicals.