The Annotated Passover Haggadah breaks new ground via the world's most renowned Jewish scholars in providing important analytical, philosophical, and theological perspectives on the seminal event of Jewish consciousness.

"A groundbreaking haggadah that presents the Exodus narrative in its entirety and highlights the actions of its female characters. Falk's ... commentaries invite us to bring personal reflections to the story; her revolutionary blessings, in Hebrew and English, offer a nonpatriarchal vision of the divine; and her kavanot--meditative directions for prayer--introduce a new genre to the seder ritual"--Page 4 of cover.

This comprehensive, textual treatment of the Kaifeng Passover Rite is a significant contribution to the ongoing discussion of the community’s origins in particular and to comparative Jewish liturgy in general. The book includes a facsimile of one manuscript and a sample of the other, the full text of the Hebrew/Aramaic and Judeo-Persian Haggadah in Hebrew characters, as well as an English translation. Following a review of the community’s history, sources for study, and related scholarly work conducted to date, the languages used in the Haggadah and their backgrounds are discussed in detail. Analysis of the order of the service allows for comparison of the Kaifeng Jewish community’s recitation of the Passover liturgy, performance of ritual, and consumption of ceremonial food to other communities in the Jewish Diaspora. The various parts and chapters of the book, including its extensive and meticulous annotations and bibliographical references, provide much fresh and useful material for scholars and readers interested in pre-modern Jewish, Judeo-Persian and Chinese literary traditions and cultures. David Yeroushalmi, Tel Aviv University, 2015

Emerging in Spain after 1250, Jewish narrative figurative painting became a central feature in a group of illuminated Passover Haggadot in the early decades of the fourteenth century. Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain describes how the Sephardic Haggadot reflect different visualizations of scripture under various conditions and aimed at a variety of audiences. Though the specifics of the creation of these works remain a mystery, this book delves into the cultural struggles that existed during this period in history and shows how those conflicts influenced the work. The culture surrounding the creators of the Sephardic Haggadot was saturated in conflict revolving around acculturation, polemics with Christianity, and struggles within Sephardic Jewry itself. Kogman-Appel presents the Sephardic Haggadot as visual manifestations of a minority struggling for cultural identity both in relation to the dominant culture and within its own realm.

This insightful volume represents the “hands-on” experience in the world of academia of two Jewish scholars, one of Orthodox background and the other a convert to the Jewish faith. As a series of separate but interrelated essays, it approaches multiple issues touching both the historical Jesus (himself a pious Jew) and the modern phenomenon of Messianic Judaism. It bridges the gap between the typically isolated disciplines of Jewish and Christian scholarship and forges a fresh level of understanding across religious boundaries. It delves into such issues as the nature and essence of Jesus’ message (pietistic, militant or something of a hybrid), and whether Messianic Jews should be welcome in the larger Jewish community. Its ultimate challenge is to view sound scholarship as a means of bringing together disparate faith traditions around a common academic table. Serious research of the “great Nazarene” becomes interfaith discourse.

Virtually every Jewish man, woman and child knows what Passover is and has participated at a Seder using the Passover Haggadah. It is the most beloved and universally popular Jewish book. The Haggadah has been published and printed in hundreds if not thousands of versions, and despite the fact that people have been adapting this ancient text and amending the ritual to reflect the consciousness of modernity, it remains remarkably impervious to changes in fashion.Part of the reason for its endurance is the fact that it is a very precisely worded and profoundly mystical text of fabulous complexity and brilliance. It should come as no surprise that all the characters mentioned by name in the Haggadah, R. Akiba, R. Yosi Haglili and R. Yehuda, were known to be active in the mystical arts in first and second century Palestine. Some, like R. Eliezer the Great and R. Akiba were leaders of their esoteric schools and authored Kabbalistic texts of their own.For the first time, the English reader is invited to join a Seder with some of the protagonists of those discussions, to make the personal journey out of slavery, to prepare for personal Giluy Shechinah - Divine Revelation.The Kabbalist Haggadah gives the reader a compelling reason and a marvelous tool for revisiting the original Haggadah. Every line of text and every detail of the ritual is given its basic Kabbalistic description and appropriate Kavanah - Intention. Besides providing a wealth of information to the would-be Kabbalist, a how-to manual of the Mystical Seder, Rabbi J. Hershy Worch takes the reader into the rarified world of Practical Kabbalah where every thought is mirrored and every act brings a response: As below so above - as above so below.The subtext of the Haggadah is the primal trauma, Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, resulting in the loss of intimacy, referred to in the Kabbalah as the Exile of Da'at - Knowing. Slavery is undoubtedly the most prevalent and ancient of human sicknesses. Compulsive behaviors and what are commonly considered `addictions', all the modern barriers to intimacy, are merely the current forms of Egyptian Exile. The Haggadah is an ancient Self-help book, because that's what Kabbalah is all about.