A Personal Haggadah

One of the 613 Mitzvot is to retell the story of the Exodus from Egypt each year at Passover. In 2000 I took a class on creating a haggadah, Rabbi Debra Landsberg taught me to make my own Haggadah. She suggested consulting different Haggadot to pull materials together and make the seder unique. To me this makes Passover personal and allows me to make it age appropriate for the children.

Below is my personal Haggadah, which we revise each year. We swap out the selections to keep everyone interested. The page numbers refer to the following haggadot: Family = A Family Haggadah, 1987 by Shoshana Silverman; Child = A Children’s Haggadah, 1994 by Central Conference of American Rabbis; Night = A Different Night, 1997 by Noam Zion and David Dishon. I checked and all of these books are available on http://www.amazon.com/. We use A Children’s Haggadah as our main text because then most children can participate by reading. This copy is beautifully illustrated and includes many songs.

A Personal Haggadah (Click to download a pdf version with formatting.)

p. 10 Family “Order” of the seder
P 4 –11 Child A Children’s Haggadah
p. 12 Child THE FIRST CUP OF WINE
Song Take us out of Egypt
What other occasions do we light candles?
How does that make you feel? (p. 9 Family.)
p. 13 Child dip parsley
p. 14 Child hide afikomin
The four questions board book for the really young!
p. 41 Night Izzy did you ask a good question today?
Song Child p. 18 Mah Nishtana
p. 19 Six Children (wise, wicked, simple, curious, mischievous, does not even know enough to ask)
p. 3 Draluck The Ballad of the Four Sons
THE EXODUS
p. 30 – 38 Child A Children’s Haggadah
p. 39 – 41 Child TEN PLAGUES
p. 43 – 46 Child A Children’s Haggadah
The parting of the red sea
Song Child p. 47 Dayeinu
All Pretend that you had to leave home for good,
what 3 things would you want to take with you? (p. 35 Family)
p. 45 Night What does it mean to be a slave?
p. 99 Night Harriet Tubman (Ask a child guest to prepare)
p. 48 – 51 Child A Children’s Haggadah
p. 52 Child THE SECOND CUP OF WINE
p. 53 – 54 Child A Children’s Haggadah
DINNER IS SERVED
p. 56- 57 Child Passover Poem (read by a child)
Children hunt for Afikomin
p. 59 Child THE THIRD CUP OF WINE
p. 95 Night Giving a helping hand
p. 60 Child The cup of Elijah
Song p. 119 Night If I had a Hammer
Song Child p. 62 Eiliyahu Hanavi
THE FOURTH CUP OF WINE
Song Night p. 155 Who Knows One?