The Historical Haggada
Rabbi Nachman Cohen

About

Q: Why is this Haggada different from all other Haggadot?

A: Because it includes the manner through which the significance of Pesach has been modified through the Jewish historical experience.

Historical Perspectives of Pesach:
  • At the Dawn of Creation
  • Era of the Patriarchs
  • Covenant of Bein haBetarim
  • The Egyptian Exodus
  • The first Pesach in Israel
  • The Second Temple Era
  • Alexandrian Jewry
  • Destruction of Second Temple
  • Bar Kokhva Revolt
  • Babylonian Jewry
  • The Ge’onic Period
  • Ashkenazic Jewry
  • Blood Libels
  • The Lost Generation
  • History of Reclining
Scientific inquiries:
  • Heterogeneity of time
  • Zeno’s Paradoxes
Educational sensitivity:
  • Blessing the children
  • “One size does not fit all”
  • Raising children
  • We break to educate
  • The wicked intellectual
  • Hakarat hatov: Gratitude
  • Dayyenu: The real secret
  • The child who finds mitzvot too cumbersome
Background for the customs of:
  • Eating eggs in salt water
  • Opening the door for Eliyahu
  • Wearing a kittel
  • Reciting Hallel in the synagogue on Pesach Night

The Author

Rabbi Nachman Cohen

Rabbi Nachman Cohen is the Director of Torah Lishmah Institute, Founding Rabbi of Young Israel Ohab Zedek, and Chairman of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists.

He studied in Mesivta Torah Vodaath and Yeshivas Karlin Stolin, and received an Sc.M. in Physics from Brown University, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston University.

Reviews

Rabbi Dr. Nachman Cohen’s Haggadah is a treasure trove of interesting and engaging material, much of which takes a refreshing, novel approach to the Haggadah. Historical context and insights, along with comprehensive analyses (such as his tabular correspondence of the twenty-six lines of Hallel Hagadol to the twenty-six generations from Adam until the Exodus) make this a truly innovative work.

Highly original scholarly explorations on the Haggadah based on Midrashic and Talmudic literature by my mentor, friend, and collaborator R. Nachman Cohen, Rabbi Emeritus of the YI of N. Riverdale.

Rabbi Nachman Cohen in his Historical Haggada offers a fantastic insight. If you look at the Torah and in Psalms, chapter 106 in particular, you will notice that every stanza of dayeinu corresponds with an incredibly gracious act God did for us and our absolute ungrateful response.

Every year I try to learn the Hagaddah with new explanations of the classic. This year, I used an Historical Hagaddah by Rabbi Nachman Cohen. Rabbi Cohen gives a fascinating historical perspective to the stories in the Hagaddah.

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