What is the Passover Haggadah?
The Passover Haggadah is the 'instruction manual' of the Passover Seder (a festive meal that opens the Passover holiday). The Passover Haggadah describes the order of events and rituals in the Passover Seder using a rabbinically-formulated and highly structured order of instructions that are organized into 15-steps. The Passover Haggadah is not a book in the classic sense of the term. Instead, it is a collection of literary works from many time periods. It consists of biblical passages, psalms or hymns, benedictions or rituals, prayers, explanations of the Passover Seder rituals, blessings, stories, short dialogues, and rabbinic literature. The Passover rituals are performed at various points in amongst all these literary works.

What does the word "Haggadah" in Passover Haggadah mean?
The word "Haggadah" in Passover Haggadah means either "narration" or "telling" or "recital" in Hebrew. The Passover Haggadah is a "narration" or "telling" or "recital" of the instructions on how to conduct a Passover Seder as well as a "narration" or "telling" or "recital" of the Passover story contained in the Passover Haggadah.

Is there only one kind of Passover Haggadah?
There are over 3,000 different types of Passover Haggadahs in existence today. While the basic Passover story remains the same throughout all Passover Haggadahs, rabbis have encouraged the re-interpretation of the meanings of the events in the Passover story to both adapt to changing times and to reflect various political and religious philosophies within Judaism and to reach out to as many Jewish people as possible based on those reasons.

When is the Passover Haggadah read during the Passover holiday?
Reform Jews and Jews in Israel observe the Passover holiday for 7 days and celebrate the Passover Seder only on the first evening of Passover. All other Jews worldwide observe the Passover holiday for 8 days, and celebrate the Passover Seder on each of the first two evenings of Passover. Therefore, the Passover Haggadah is read at the Passover Seder only on the first night of Passover for Reform Jews and Jews in Israel while for all other Jews, the Passover Haggadah is read at the Passover Seder on the first two evenings of the Passover holiday.

What is the history of printed Haggadahs?
The first printed Passover Haggadahs originated in Guadalajara, Spain circa 1482 and Italy in 1505, respectively. The earliest known separate editions of the Passover Haggadah appeared in the 13th century, and the first illuminated Passover Haggadah manuscripts also appeared at the same time. Illuminated Passover Haggadah manuscripts were produced from the 13th century until the time when printed Passover Haggadahs were first made in the 15th century. Thereafter, printed Passover Haggadahs were often illuminated themselves. Since the Passover Haggadah text was relatively short, it was fairly inexpensive to produce even as it involved a scribe for the text and artist for the illustrations. As the financial situations of Jewish families in Spain, Germany, Italy, and France improved in the later Middle Ages, many could then afford to own a Passover Haggadah that contained illustrations.

What is the basis for Haggadah illustrations?
These illustrations usually contained motifs that were based on the Passover Haggadah itself. Both the illustrations and text were embellished with stylish designs and writing. The oldest surviving illustrated Passover Haggadah was an edition printed by Gershom Cohen in 1526 in Prague. The Mantua, Italy edition of the Passover Haggadah in 1560 reproduced the text of the 1526 Prague edition in facsimile. However, it introduced new illustrations and marginal decorations that were already were used by non-Jewish publications but were in conformity with Italian taste.

What countries were the first to print Haggadahs and how did their styles differ?
The first printed Passover Haggadahs to be consistently and systematically illustrated were produced in Venice, Italy in 1599, 1601, 1603, and 1604. Basing its edition on the Mantua edition, the Venice edition was widely popular and imitated by Jews in southern Europe, notably the Spanish and Italian Jews. To this day, the Venice edition of the Passover Haggadah continues to be the prototype Passover Haggadah for Spanish and Italian Jews. In 1695, the Amsterdam edition followed the style of the Venice edition but with the addition of improved illustrations being engraved on copper. The Amsterdam edition and its subsequent imitations became the most popular edition among the Ashkenazim of Central and Eastern Europe from 1695 onward, notably in Germany and its neighboring countries. The earliest illuminated Sephardic Passover Haggadah is the opulent Golden Haggadah from Barcelona, Spain circa 1320.

The best known Hebrew Haggadah manuscript is the Sarajevo Haggadah, originally produced circa 1350 as a wedding gift to a young couple in Barcelona, Spain, but now residing in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It reached the Sarajevo museum in 1894 when a child in the Sephardic community in Sarajevo brought it to school to be sold after his father died, which left the family destitute. It is now housed in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

The artistic design of a Passover Haggadah book took on elaborate forms in the Middle Ages. Because each person at the Passover Seder table had to have his or her own copy of the Passover Haggadah, this encouraged wealthy Jews in the Middle Ages to have extravagantly illuminated Passover Haggadahs designed with great care. By displaying various eye-catching illustrations and text styles in Passover Haggadahs, it was hoped that women and children would be even more curious and would want to learn more about the Passover holiday. The desire to design extravagant-looking Passover Haggadahs developed to a point where separate artistic traditions emerged in Spain, Germany, and Italy in the Middle Ages. Today, the illustrations and text of Passover Haggadahs are designed and written to reflect the beliefs of different denominations and interest groups in the Jewish faith.

What does Passover celebrate?
Passover celebrates the Hebrew people's freedom from Egyptian bondage that took place approximately 3,300 years ago as told in the first 15 chapters of the biblical Book of Exodus. To remember the miraculous events that God performed for the Hebrews which led to their freedom, God commanded Moses and the Hebrews to slaughter and eat a roasted paschal lamb which symbolizes the Passover sacrifice, and eat it with bitter herbs and matzah. God also instructed the Hebrews to spread the blood of the paschal lamb on the two doorposts and on the beam above the door of the houses in which they will eat the paschal lamb. This act was God's sign to pass over the Hebrews' homes during the 10th plague, which was the killing of the first born sons of the Egyptians as punishment for enslaving the Hebrews and disrespecting God by believing that their multiple Gods had more powers than the one true God. God also instructed the Hebrews to eat matzah for the seven-day period of the Passover holiday and to clear their home of leavened items by the first day of Passover. Since the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. by the Romans, the slaughtering of a paschal lamb was replaced by the roasting of a hard-boiled egg and the shank bone which are two of the symbolic foods on the Passover Seder plate.

What is the Passover Seder?
Since the time of Jewish freedom from Egyptian slavery, the celebration of Passover was organized into a feast called the Passover Seder. The Passover Seder feast was patterned somewhat after the Greco-Roman feasts that rabbis observed during the time of the Romans' presence in Jerusalem in the 1st century B.C.E. and the first century C.E. The word 'Seder' means 'order' or 'procedure' in Hebrew and refers to the order of historical events recalled in the Passover meal as well as the meal itself. The story of Passover is read from a book or manual called the 'Haggadah', meaning 'narration' or 'telling' in Hebrew. The Passover Haggadah was loosely organized by rabbinic scholars during the period just before and after the time when the Common Era (C.E. or A.D. to Christians) began. In addition to containing the story of Passover, the Passover Haggadah contains prayers, blessings, songs, biblical passages, and scholarly commentaries by rabbinic sages. While the main story of Passover is read at Passover Seders by Jews the world over, local customs have been added over time so that the Passover festival has been adapted to reflect the life and routines of Jewish communities in different countries. The Passover Haggadah may be read either in the local language, or a mixture of the local language and Hebrew, or different combinations of the local language, Hebrew, and either Ladino (the language of Sephardic Jews originating in Spain) or Yiddish (the language of Ashkenazic Jews originating in Central and Eastern Europe).

Passover is celebrated for 8 days (7 days for most Reform Jews and some Conservative Jews). Since the Jewish day begins at sundown, Passover actually starts at sundown on the evening prior to the first full day of Passover in the Gregorian or Christian calendar.

What is the significance of Passover?
Passover has three primary levels of significance: (1) Passover is a historical festival, commemorating the exodus from Egypt, notably the physical redemption of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt; (2) Passover is an agricultural festival, celebrating the Spring season and the new growth and harvest season, particularly the earliest barley and cereal harvest; (3) Passover is a religious festival, it celebrates the fact that God is the redeemer of the Hebrews from the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh who forced the Hebrews into slavery in ancient Egypt. As the redeemer of the Hebrews, the Hebrews became the servants of God alone.

Information adapted from the following web site: http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/passover/passoverhaggadah.html.