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The Most Illustrated Book in the Jewish Home, and Why

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The Most Illustrated Book in the Jewish Home, and Why

A haggadah is read communally around a table, including by children, which is precisely why it became historically the most heavily illustrated genre of Hebrew book, the Sarajevo Haggadah, the Bird's Head Haggadah and the Golden Haggadah among the best known medieval illuminated examples, made so that everyone at the seder, literate or not, could follow the story in images as well as words.

From illuminated manuscript to mass giveaway

Today a haggadah is mass printed by dozens of publishers and movements, each adding its own translation, commentary or artwork, and the object has traveled from expensive illuminated manuscript to genuinely disposable mass giveaway, the Maxwell House Haggadah, distributed free with coffee purchases in the United States for generations, being the best documented case of that shift.

Handling, staining and disposal

Any participant handles a haggadah freely during the seder, there is no restriction comparable to a Torah scroll, and wine stains from the ritual cups are an ordinary and expected mark of use rather than damage. Because it carries the Divine Name in Hebrew, a haggadah worn beyond use is still treated like other Hebrew sacred texts, retired to a genizah and buried rather than thrown out, regardless of how cheaply it was originally produced.

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