JEWISH WORLD

24 JEWISH WORLD • APRIL 1 - 7, 2022 Haggadahs continued from page 23 Bodek says he wrote it with serious purposes in mind: to make the Hag- gadah more accessible with humor. Bodek extensively researched Shakespeare’s writing style and even references his works through- out his Haggadah. “I wanted every single play sourced at least multi- ple times. It wasn’t always easy to find relevant quotes, but I managed to pull it off.” A Haggadah like Bodek’s was unlikely to be used by any Jews in Shakespeare’s time; all had been expelled from England in 1290, more than two centuries before the playwright’s birth, and were not al- lowed to return until 1657. Shake- speare probably did not know any Jews, and his depiction of the moneylender Shylock, the shady protagonist of “The Merchant of Venice,” which is laced with an- ti-Semitic stereotypes, was likely based on public perceptions of the exiled Jewish community. T he Telling,” the literal meaning of Haggadah, is neither a traditional version of the book or a companion guide to the Seder night text. Rather, it is a phil- osophical guide to the themes — many of them not readily apparent to anyone without Gerson’s erudite knowledge of Jewish thought — of Judaism’s Festival of Freedom. In 59 well-researched and well- thought out essays, on such topics as “The Logic of the Seder Plate,” “‘Dayenu’: How to Express Grati- tude,” and “Why Any Plagues?”, the author offers insights into principles of the Jewish religion that reveal themselves through the words of the Seder. These are principles whose application are expressed on, but not limited to, Pesach, and are applica- ble to non-Jewish readers too. “One of the teachings derived from the Haggadah … is that there can be multiple interpretations of the same thing that are all different, each true, none contradictory,” Ger- son writes in his “Methodology” introduction. “Every time … that I thought I concluded anything relat- ed to the Haggadah, I realized that I had just generated more questions.” An entrepreneur, philanthropist and author of a weekly Torah col- umn for the Christian Broadcast- ing Network, Gerson has become a Jewish education activist in New York City. He says he holds a spe- cial affection for Passover. “I fell in love with the Hagga- dah 15 years ago, when I realized that this short book is a genuine treasure that has so much to help us live in the most practical way,” he says, calling the Haggadah “the original self-help book.” His workbook is a guide to the guide, instructing a Seder lead- er, through thoughtful discussion questions, how to incorporate the Haggadah’s lessons into the Seder, and into the year beyond the two nights of the Seder. T his Haggadah, now in its sec- ond, revised printing, was born out of the forced extended isola- tion caused by Covid, and created by the Jewish Arts Collective of Chicago (JACC. True to the book’s title, its focus is visual, with artistic images in place of the written commentaries in the Haggadah. “As a Jewish arts collective, we are accustomed to creating work based on Jewish themes and text,” the introduction states. “Creating art is an aggadic response, a way to tell the story using metaphor and ritual to address the themes of oppression and liberation, wandering and dispersion, slav- ery and Exodus. “Our visual midrash is a way to draw new meaning from and renew the story.” The softcover Haggadah’s 144 pages include artistic digitally en- hanced, century-old children’s por- traits to illustrate “The Four Sons”; a repurposed sketch of a few men eating in a kibbutz dining hall to represent the Seder meal; a beau- tiful drawing of the Western Wall to accompany the reading of “Next Year in Jerusalem”; and 49 bright- ly colored sheaves that represent the daily Omer counting during the seven-week Sefirah period be- tween Passover and Shavuot. The Haggadah’s text and art- work answer such questions as “What does it mean to celebrate Passover in a pandemic? How do [the Haggadah’s] elements re- flect on the plagues of disease, death and injustice that still ex- ist? How do we praise God when the world is broken and millions continue to suffer?” In early 2020, the contributors, all experienced artists from the Chicago area, decided that “en- gaging original artwork” should emerge from the necessity of “celebrating a socially distanced Passover” in their own homes. “In the period of COVID we began to view it through an artist’s lens. Susan Dickman, a graduate of the MFA program at the University of California, served as the Hag- gadah project’s editor and writer; Berit Engen, a Norwegian-born weaver, was its editor and curator; and Carol Neiger, a veteran paint- er, was project director and design- er. eight other artists contributed their art and ideas. “The confluence of our own modern plague with Passover and its infamous plagues made us think about the story in a way that felt suddenly relevant to what we were experiencing,” Neiger says. “COVID-19 was the trigger. Dickman, raised on what she describes as “Reform-by-default baggage and the cheesy Hebrew school model Seders I attend- ed each year,” writes that in her thirties she “began experiencing a different sort of Seder, one that meandered and incorporated rit- uals new to me … The Maxwell House Haggadah had disap- peared, and new guides took its place, [such as] Haggadot with artwork and a focus on inner journey and redemption; Hag- gadot focused around feminism or hippies or kibbutz life.” “At the onset of the pandemic, my colleague Carol invited fel- low artists to create a Haggadah. But she wanted to create one that focused on art as text,” Dickman writes. “We mined the Haggadah in ways that we hadn’t before, look- ing not just as Seder participants but as artists seeking to express and add meaning to the genre. It became quite clear that we were not interested in illustrating a story but in exploring it for its depths.” It contains 75 pages of original artwork (in both full color and black- and-white), the full text of the Hag- gadah’s readings and rituals (with creative Hebrew fonts, a variety of English fonts, and transliteration). While other Haggadot present beautiful artwork to supplement the traditional readings and commen- tary, here the art is the commentary. This Haggadah is for Seder par- ticipants who favor viewing over reading. One would be advised to use it carefully at the Seder table, lest the art becomes stained — un- less the stains become part of a family’s holiday tradition. Steve Lipman is a longtime jour- nalist. The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life By Mark Gerson (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2021) 352p., $29.99 Out of the Narrows: The Artists’ Haggadah: A Visual Midrash By Susan Dickman, et. al. (Barnes & Noble Press, 2021) 144p., $28.25 “ REQUEST A FREE QUOTE! 877 380 0419 Prepare for power outages with a Generac home standby generator FREE 7-Year Extended Warranty* A $695 Value! O er valid February 15 - June 6, 2021 Special Financing Available Subject to Credit Approval *To qualify, consumers must request a quote, purchase, install and activate the generator with a participating dealer. Call for a full list of terms and conditions.