kosher bookworm: alan jay gerber

The depth and passion of Pesach’s Haggadah

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Pesach commemorates events that clearly defined our people’s history and purpose. So, when I happened upon a commentary on a Haggadah whose author’s name brings to mind events in my past, a personal comment is in order as preface to this review.

“From Despair to Destiny” (Halpern Center Press, 2015) by Rabbi Aharon Marcus is a unique and comprehensive commentary on the Pesach Haggadah. The author is the grandson of Rabbi Joseph Marcus, z”l, a distinguished rabbi and a neighbor of ours on the Lower East Side, first on Tompkins Square, and then in Co-op Village, who was particularly skilled in teaching and lecturing to senior citizens.

Most memorable to me was the casual friendship he struck up with me, during my pre-teen years, an experience that influenced my later deep appreciation for Jewish liturgy and nusach, Jewish music and culture, and the importance of giving communal service to our senior citizens. All these served to inform my communal activities for the rest of my life, for which I am forever grateful. The Haggadah under review is dedicated, in part, to his everlasting memory.

This week’s essay is based on my email interview with Rabbi Aharon Marcus.

Rabbi Marcus was born in Far Rockaway and raised on Staten Island. He was to make aliyah years later and together with his brothers founded Yeshivat Reishis Yerushalayim in 1994, where he continues to teach Talmud, and Jewish thought and law. In the early 1990s he published the works of his mentor, Rav Aharon Soloveichik, “Logic of the Heart, Logic of the Mind” and “The Warmth and the Light.”

I began by asking him why did he decide to write a Haggadah commentary when there already are so many available.

“G-d has given me the opportunity to teach the Haggadah every year since the summer — yes the summer — of 1990, generally as intensive two-week-long information seminars. For nearly two decades, many of my students have impressed upon me to publish these shiurim, but my response had always been the same: there are many Haggadah commentaries; do we really need another one?”

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