Seder with my family includes no less than 20 people on any given year. How the heck do you expect someone to sped $40 a pop on Hagadot? No wonder the ~6 million Jews in America all use the free Maxwell House Hagada from back in the day.

Looking intriging! Where might I purchase this Hagadda?

And with pictures - a rarity. The pictures are beautiful, I'll put this on my Amazon "wish list" until the recession is over...

when he says that the ritual of the seder started in the Greco-Roman period? The commandments to celebrate Passover and relate the story of the Exodus are Biblical and were celebrated in Temple times as described by ROMAN testimony. The four questions even used to have a fifth addition, regarding the Passover sacrifice. If he is referring to where the story begins - the Talmud gives the source as the opinions of two Babylonian scholars. Is his thesis corrupted by the brevity of the article or by his research?

The rituals of the seder night which date back to the Torah would not be recognized as constituting a seder as we know it today. The author is refering to various elements of the Hagadah, such as the Ma Nishtana, the four sons, the story of the five sages, the "koreich" sandwhich, etc., which are associated with the seder, and do not find their explicit origins in the Torah.

For many sephardic communities eggs in salted water is what is given to mourners and not for a day of joy. But... since the egg is an essential element of the seder plate, an egg is indeed placed on the plate. The serving of the egg is however presented in a culinary fashion as follow: Little towers which consist of a large slice of potatoe at the base, a medium slice of betroot and finally a smaller slice of egg. The towers are arranged in a circular display on a round plate. Before serving add salt, pepper and sprinkle fresh chopped parsley for decoration. Bon appetit and happy Passover

There is so much depth to the Hagada that it takes so many years to get them all. If you follow the RIGHT path you eventually will get it. It's not the PICTURES or the surface but getting into deep discussions when you strat "Magid" part of the Hagada. Happy Passover

It was wonderful. It brought the magic of the Holiday into my home when I was 8 years old, and has had a lasting impact on my daily life since the late 1950s. I can't speak for all, but the Jews of America before and after the War kept a very low profile, lest we offend the goyim, with our "Jewishness", with our differences. That low profile, that slavish fear of offending the "others" lead to a lot of people going into ovens, when Roosevelt could have been bombing German train lines, but I digress. The beauty, and the simplicity of the Maxwell House Hagaddah brought the holiday out of the Yiddish-Aramaic incomprehensible orthodoxy, and gave it to a very secular group of people. Decades later, during the early 1990s, as the Russian Jews were coming out, I used the Maxwell House as a blueprint text, with Russian translations, to write my own Hagaddah, to teach as many people as I could in 2 nights what I had grown up with over 4 decades. And you know-it worked! To see people who have had rocks thrown at their children, who knew of the Passover Seder but never dreamed they could ever participate in one, suddenly experiencing the freedom of America and participating in a ritual that their grandparents and greatgrandparents celebrated is as close to a modern day miracle as you can get. Certainly it has been for my family. I have added talmudic tales where appropriate, I have added verse from the Torah to the Maxwell House story. Pesach is a living, breathing story of Freedom, with roots going back to the Babylonian exile, and to lose sight that this is a holiday of Freedom, certainly when contemporary politics tries to enslave us with the security that comes with being slaves to a higher power would be tragic. The message is as fresh today as it was 2000 or more years ago. And just as rituals were added to the service well after the fall of both the first and second temples, they will continue to be added, and rightfully so. THIS is the beauty of the Maxwell House Hagaddah. Think of it as your first primer, when you were learning to read. It isn't the ultimate book, but it opened your eyes, or at least those of my family. Chag Sameach! And Next Year In Jerusalem!