Artscroll Gift Card Flash Giveaway and a review of "The Answer Is...," Artscroll's newest hagaddah

AND THE WINNER IS:  RACHEL S. FROM BROOKLYN, NY!  Congratulations, Rachel!  And a Chag Kasher V'Sameach!

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When Artscroll approached me about reviewing one of their newly-released Passover cookbooks on Daily Cheapskate, I asked them about reviewing a hagaddah instead.  My husband, Joshua, and I have our own "minhag" of buying one new hagaddah each year.  We do this to refresh our Seder table with new vorts and Pesach insights each year.  At this point, we've got about thirty different hagaddot (some years we cheated and bought two), so each guest at our Seder table will have something unique to contribute to the Seder conversation.

Artscroll just released a new Hagaddah called The Answer Is... by Rabbi Chagai Vilosky. Instead of doing it myself, I asked Joshua to review it for Daily Cheapskate, as Joshua is a seasoned Jewish book reviewer.  Take it away, Joshua!

The Answer Is... by Rabbi Chagai Vilosky reviewed by Joshua Sharf The Passover Seder is a time for questions and a time for teaching. Indeed, many of the things we do – removing the Seder plate, washing our hands before eating the karpas – are specifically done in order to provoke questions. Many rabbis have organized their Haggadah commentaries as question-and-answer sessions, such as the Abarbanel (in the late 15th/early 16th century). The Answer Is... by Rabbi Chagai Vilosky, just released in English translation by ArtScroll, follows this traditional format, but with a twist. Instead of weaving a single, extended discussion of the seder and its meaning, it provides snippets of answers from over 220 different sources. These sources range from the early Medieval, such as Maimonides or Nachmanides, to the contemporary, such as Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, or Rav Kotler. No one authority is represented in all the answers, nor is one single outlook. Indeed, the answers are often wildly at odds with each other, opening up the opportunity for some fascinating seder table discussions.For example, there’s the famous section of the hagaddah where the first nine of the ten plagues are divided into groups of three.  Rabbi Vilosky spends several pages on eight different responses as to why they were grouped this way,  with each of these groupings imparting a different lesson, and their juxtaposition inviting a debate over which answer is most persuasive and resonates the most with the seder participants. The Answer Is... will work very well for someone who is leading a seder and has considerable breadth of knowledge and a solid background in Judaic studies. Even the biographical and bibliographical thumbnail sketches in the back of the book, provided as reference, are only a sentence or two, and assume some familiarity with the sources. As an example, why were the Hebrews ushered out of Egypt after 210 years of servitude, when 400 years of exile were prophesied? The Arizal responds by discussing their levels of impurity. Here, it’s helpful to know that the Arizal was Rabbi Yitzhak Luria, the greatest of the mystics who gained prominence in the decades after the expulsion from Spain, and that the idea that there are distinct levels of impurity is a Kabbalistic one. Another commentator claims that the time of slavery was shortened as a reward for not assimilating with the Egyptians; in order to make sense of this, the reader should know the Midrash that spells out the specific ways the Jews kept themselves separated from Egyptian culture.  Don’t be deceived by the simplicity of the title; this haggadah is not for beginners. The answers often refer to complex or significant concepts,  without always explaining them in full. But it’s ideal for a knowledgeable leader who will be able to use the answers as jumping-off points for further discussion at the seder.   The Answer Is... is a rich resource of many different scholarly points of view on the text of the hagaddah.

We are really looking forward to using this hagaddah at our seder this year!  Artscroll has got The Answer Is... by Rabbi Chagai Vilosky for $21.59 plus $4.95 shipping (free shipping starts at $79.00).

Ready for a Flash Giveaway?

The generous folks at Artscroll would like to give away a $20.00 e-gift card to one Daily Cheapskate reader, and since we're a mere five days away from the start of Pesach, we're going to do a Flash Artscroll Gift Card Giveaway!  If you'd like to enter the giveaway, please send an email to susie@DailyCheapskate.com with the words "Give me an Artscroll gift card!" in the subject line, and your full name and email address in the body of the email. We're going to select one name at random from all the emails that we receive between now and noon EST tomorrow, 4/10/14, and then tomorrow afternoon, we will contact the winner and then announce their name here.   Good luck!


Review and Giveaway Disclosure:  Artscroll gave me a copy of The Answer Is... free of charge, for reviewing purposes.  The review that Joshua Sharf wrote is original and his own opinion.  We were not compensated in any way for this review, other than the free book.  Artscroll.com is providing the $20.00 gift card for this giveaway.   

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