This is the haggadah that has changed the American seder. First published in 1997, it's a full traditional seder, but with large amounts of art and commentaries, and discussion starters -- all in a user-friendly format that makes it easy to customize your seder. The Four Children section (with 20 representations going back to 1526) is already a classic. Easy-to-follow instructions make this book accessible to even a novice seder leader; and the many short commentaries will enrich anyone's Passover. Now in a new edition, with an added 32 pages of Passover stories. New Haggadah Earmarked for Families BY NOW THERE are who-knows-how-many different editions of the Haggadah. It is probably the most published book in all of Jewish life. There are haggadot for vegetarians, peaceniks, secularists, art lovers and almost every category you can think of. So what do we need another one for? That was my thought until I opened this one, and then I understood which niche this book fills. It is for those who may not know much, but who want to learn and who want a seder that is user-friendly and interactive and meaningful for both adults and children. That is a pretty big segment of the market, and so this is a book that deserves to be considered for possible use for at least one, if not both, of the nights of the seder. The people who put it together are not only good pedagogues, they are master designers. And so they have worked out a number of formats and prompters on each page that make it clear and easy to use For those who don t want to or are unable to stay up till midnight, there is a bare bones seder that consists of both text and ideas for discussion and projects for the kids and that can be completed in an hour. There are thought questions, such as Was it right for Abraham to break his father's idols? and Are we not all Jews by choice today? that are bound to raise debate at the seder. And there are quotations from a whole range of people such as Frances Bacon, William Shakespeare and Winston Churchill as well as Maimonides and Rav and Chassidic masters. Shakespeare s thoughts about whether revenge is good or bad are a lovely sendoff to the discussion of why we spill ten drops of wine for the ten plagues. The whole idea of the seder is that it should be an experiment in intergenerational communication. And so the editors do something very special with the section about the four children. They bring us 15 pages of different drawings, so that we can discuss together what constituted wiseness and what constituted badness, and what constituted simpleness and inability to ask in different periods and in the imagination of different artists. They show us a rendition from the Prague Haggadah (1526) and, next to it, one from Budapest (1924). And they suggest we might do some role playing or debate whether the wicked child may be an unfair description. They show us Abrabanel's opinion that the wise child may really be a smart ass, wise guy trying to show off his knowledge instead of the good guy that we have always thought him to be. There are renditions of the four children that show the wicked son smoking at the seder (1879) or as a prize fighter (1920). Tanya Zion adds two marvelous sets: one of the four versions of the ideal Jewish girl and one of the four children in contemporary Israel. See if you can figure out why the haredi child is the one who does not know how to ask. A set by Dick Codor uses the Marx brothers as models (quick do you remember which one never spoke?) I bet you can t get through this section of the seder without many laughs and a lively interchange on what constitutes goodness or wisdom or rebelliousness or apathy in our age. But try to save some time for the rest of the Haggadah, for there are a lot of innovations and surprises all through this book. By the way, one of its best suggestions is to expand the meaning of the karpas that we eat at the beginning of the seder to include dipping and tasting various fresh vegetables and other appetizers so that When do we eat already? does not become the kvetch of the evening. The seder is not supposed to be an endurance contest or a speed race or a rushed-through prelude to the meal. It is supposed to be a holy moment, when parents teach children who we are and what our story is and manufacture the memories that will nourish them for years to come. --Rabbi Jack Riemer, Jewish Journal South Good to the Last Cup Did Maxwell House kill the American Passover Seder? It seems like a heavy charge to pin on a coffee company. But who knows how many Jewish children, numbly and obediently flipping through the pages of the blue and white Maxwell House came to regard the seder as a stultifying arcane ritual, a regimented recitation of thees and thous, an endurance test as lacking in levity as leaven? Is it only a coincidence that in the 70 years since Maxwell House began distributing tens of thousands of haggadot as promotional items, the intermarriage rate amo