Two Minute Torah Podcast

Tzav (Shabbat Hagadol) 5770 by Rabbi Mitchel Malkus

Shalom and welcome to KOACH's Two-Minute Torah podcast. I am Rabbi Mitchel Malkus, Head of School of the Rabbi Jacob Pressman Academy of Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles, California.

The Shabbat immediately preceding Pesah is called Shabbat Ha-gadol, the great Sabbath. It is not certain why this Shabbat is designated as Ha-gadol. The Shulhan Arukh states that it is because of the retelling of the great day when the Israelites sacrificed the lamb and joined the emancipation process.

What is clear about Shabbat Ha-gadol is that it became customary for rabbis to deliver a sermon on that day and to use the time of minha to recite the words of the Haggadah in preparation for the coming holiday. As we prepare for the seder night, I wanted to take this opportunity of Shabbat Ha-gadol to speak about the origins of the central text that we will use to tell the story of our people, the Haggadah.

As the Haggadah is one of the most ubiquitous Jewish books, understanding its origins will add an additional layer of meaning to our seder night rituals.

The earliest haggadot may be divided into two major versions: the Babylonian version and the Eretz Yisrael version. The modern texts that we use in our homes today are a direct descendent of the Babylonian version. The earliest complete Babylonian haggadot are actually found in two siddurim, the siddur of Rav Amram Gaon and the siddur of Rav Saadia Gaon, two Jewish sages who lived in the 9th and 10th centuries C.E.

The Eretz Yisrael version was lost sometime after the period of the Crusades, and became known more recently as part of the discoveries of the Cairo genizah. The post-Talmudic version of the Babylonian Haggadah spread throughout the Jewish world and eventually split into three subversions: Askenazic, Sephardic, and Yemenite.

These three main subversions have split into numerous branches and are used throughout the world. There is relatively little difference between all of these subversions.

The magic of the seder night is that it allows each of us to tell and retell the story of our people in our own words using our own insights to interpret our exodus from Egypt. The Haggadah, which ever one we use, is a tool for retelling this story. At this point in our history as people, not only is the story that we tell thousands of years old, but the central text that we use to tell that story is also over a 1000 years old.

I hope each of you has a Hag kasher v'sameah; a wonderful and joyous Pesah.