הגדה ברורה is a vindication of a traditional text. It shows how the apparently opaque phrases opening with ארמי אבד אבי repeated Seder after Seder are not what they at first glance appear, but a sophisticated tool for doing what you are actually supposed to be doing on Seder night: telling the story of yetziat mitzrayim. Without making any changes to the established liturgy at all, you can dramatically upgrade your Seder night. הגדה תקומת ישראל, however, is intended to be the first reactionary Haggadah, that is to say one based on the belief that academic scholarship can be used to improve the Seder.
‘Improve’ here is being used in two senses. (i) to make it more in accord with the instructions of the Torah as explained and transmitted by Hazal (ii) to make it more relevant to the experience of the Jewish people today resettling the Land of Israel and working out how to constitute the third Jewish commonwealth. I hope that these essays are not only informative ans useful, but serve as an example of what reactionary Torah study can achieve.
I’m not sure how long הגדה תקומת ישראל will take, but it will certainly be a project of many years. In the meantime, I will be posting short essays examining each section of the Seder from the reactionary perspective.
