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In addition to the striking art, the ancient rhythms of the Haggadah text are punctuated by a thoughtful anthology of contemporary and historical readings. Martin Buber retells a Hasidic story. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel discusses the Sabbath. Erich Fromm talks about idols, Elie Wiesel about Jewishness, and a passage from The Diary of Anne Frank touchingly describes how to be hopeful in adversity.
The restoration of traditional Passover flavor to the new Haggadah reflects a widespread new interest in ritual practices among Reform Jews (TIME, Nov. 26). But the editor of the new Haggadah, Rabbi Herbert Bronstein of Glencoe, Ill., emphasizes that the restorations are not a return to literalism. The phrase "Next year in Jerusalem," for instance, may be a "present physical longing" for many, but it "speaks also in the mode of our mystics, of the homecoming of all existence."
Similarly, the new text includes a much more specific welcome to the prophet Elijah, who is expected to "visit" each Seder. "From beyond," says the new text unabashedly, "Elijah's spirit enters these walls ..." The expansion of the Elijah rite, Rabbi Bronstein explains somewhat prolixly, is a move "to preserve a sense of reverence before the mysterious pluralities of the transcendent." In another symbolic touch, an innovation of their own, the Reform liturgists have added a fifth cup of wine to the four traditional cups drunk by the celebrants—a cup that is left untasted "as a sign of hope for the beginning of Redemption."
A Passover Haggadah is a handsome book, either in the personal-size paperback ($3, from the Central Conference of American Rabbis) or the coffee-table hardback (Grossman; $17.50). A "family package" —ten paperbacks and the hardback for $37.50—has been selling briskly. The book's only drawback for some potential users may be its refusal to coddle its audience. While everything in Hebrew also appears in English, none of the Hebrew is transliterated for those who might like to speak the Hebrew words but cannot read the characters. Moreover, the profusion of optional readings and songs may confuse those who prefer a follow-by-rote handbook to one that allows many individual variations. For the confused, though, the Haggadah's liturgists promise some help next year: a cassette recommending the best ways to use this rich and innovative ritual.