Haggadah

thumb|Page from the illuminated Darmstadt Haggadah, Germany, The Haggadah (, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a foundational Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table fulfills the mitzvah incumbent on every Jew to recount the Egyptian Exodus story to their children on the first night of Passover.

==History== ===Authorship=== According to Jewish tradition, the Haggadah developed during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods, although the exact timeframe is unknown. It has existed in different forms over history and therefore cannot be attributed to a single author. Its corporate author is traditionally designated as the Baal Haggadah (master of the Haggadah). There is also a tradition that the term Baal Haggadah refers to an anonymous individual from the time of the Gaonim who devised the standard version used today. It is unlikely that it was assembled before the time of Judah bar Ilai (), the latest tanna quoted therein. It is usually assumed that a set text did not exist prior to a crucial dispute about the Haggadah's arrangement recorded in the Babylonian Talmud. The Vilna edition of the Talmud identifies the participants in that dispute as Abba Arika and Samuel of Nehardea (), but the latter was more likely Rava (c. 280-352 CE). From a statement of Rav Nachman, it appears he was aware of a set Haggadah text, but there is a dispute about which Rav Nachman the Talmud referred to, Rav Nachman bar Yaakov (), or Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak (c. 360 CE). A minority of commentators, including Naftali Maskil LeAison, author of the Malbim Haggadah, believe that the Haggadah's text was already complete at the time of Abba Arika and Samuel and that they were arguing about the Haggadah's interpretation rather than its arrangement. The Malbim Haggadah theorizes that the Haggadah was written by the compiler of the Mishnah, Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (c. 135-217 CE).