In a generation that has seen an explosion in popularity of books about mystical and meditative traditions, very little has been published about the rich and fascinating mystical traditions of the Jewish holy days. Passover, the first religious holiday of the Jewish people, particularly rewards a re-viewing from a mystical perspective. A Mystical Haggadah takes readers through the Passover ritual with Kabbalistic meditations and affirmations in a friendly, accessible format. This Haggadah also includes many Hassidic teachings and stories that have never been presented to the English reading audience. The book is especially valuable for its transliterations of all the major prayers and rituals, and is refreshing in its creative and spiritually-based adaptation and translation of the primary Haggadah text. A Mystical Haggadah is for all spiritual seekers who wish to explore this root tradition of Judaism as a ritual of cosmic importance. The book is also for Jewish seekers of all denominations who wish to explore the mystical, meditative, and empowering aspects of Jewish traditions as seen through the rich and meaningful Passover eve Seder ritual.

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.

Discusses four illuminated haggadot, manuscripts created for use at home services on Passover, all created in the early twelfth century.

This empowering resource for the spiritual revival of our times enables us to find deeper meaning in one of Judaism?s most beloved traditions, the Passover Seder. This Haggadah commentary adds layer upon layer of new insight to the age-old celebration of the journey from slavery to freedom?and makes its power accessible to all.It features traditional Hebrew text with a new translation designed to let people know exactly what the Haggadah says. Introductory essays help the reader understand the historical roots of the ancient holiday, the development of the Haggadah and how to make sense out of texts and customs that evolved over more than a thousand years.Framed with beautifully designed Talmud-style pages, My People?s Passover Haggadah features commentaries by scholars from all denominations of Judaism. Readers are treated to insights by experts in such fields as the Haggadah?s history; its biblical roots; its confrontation with modernity; and its relationship to rabbinic midrash and Jewish law, feminism, Chasidism, theology and kabbalah. No other volume provides the English language reader with such wide-ranging understanding of the Haggadah, the key to having the most meaningful Seder ever.Contributors:Dr. David ArnowDr. Carole BalinDr. Marc BrettlerRabbi Neil GillmanDr. Alyssa GrayRabbi Arthur Green Dr. Joel HoffmanRabbi Lawrence A. HoffmanRabbi Lawrence KushnerRabbi Daniel LandesDr. Nehemia PolenDr. Wendy I. Zierler

"Festival of Freedom, the sixth volume in the series MeOtzar HoRav, consists of ten essays on Passover and the Haggadah drawn from the treasure trove left by the late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, widely known as "the Rav." For Rabbi Soloveitchik, the Passover Seder is not simply a formal ritual or ceremonial catechism. Rather, the Seder night is "endowed with a unique and fascinating quality, exalted in its holiness and shining with a dazzling beauty." It possesses profound experiential and intellectual dimensions, both of them woven into the fabric of halakhic performance. Its central mitzvah, sippur yetzi'at Mitzrayim, recounting the exodus, is extraordinarily multifaceted, entailing study and teaching, storytelling and symbolic performance, thanksgiving and praise." --Book Jacket.

In this unprecedented masterwork, The Scholar's Haggadah: Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Oriental Versions, Heinrich Guggenheimer presents the first Haggadah to treat the texts of all Jewish groups on an equal footing and to use their divergences and concurrences as a key to the history of the text and an understanding of its development. The Seder (the ceremony of the Passover night) is one of the most universally celebrated rituals among Jewish families, for what it commemorates–Jewish freedom from bondage–is the glue that bonds all Jews together, traditional and modern, Ashkenazic and Sephardic alike. In the Book of Exodus the Jewish people are instructed to tell their children of how God brought the Israelites out of slavery from Egypt, and thousands of years later this timeless tradition remains an immutable factor in Jewish homes on Passover night. While many commentaries have been written on the Haggadah during the last one thousand years–most delineating the spiritual meaning or the ritual details of the Passover ceremonies–few historical investigations have dealt with texts that are not wholly Ashkenazic. Available for the first time to the reader is a Haggadah that includes the customs and ceremonies of not only Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewry, but of Yemenite Jews as well. Additionally, the author provides a commentary that not only offers a key to the roots of the Passover ceremonies and an introduction to the thought and practice of talmudic-rabbinic Judaism, but also presents a history of the development of text and practice of the Seder celebration. While Yemenite Jewry still follows texts and prescriptions of Maimonides practically in their original form, unchanged for at least 800 years, European Ashkenazic and Sephardic practices have undergone many changes. While the history of Yemenite Jews is riddled with oppression and migration, the Moslem rulers of their country never extended their persecutions to Jewish books. On the other hand, the history of European Jews is dominated by