The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening

The Passover Haggadah

With a Commentary Based on the Teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Edited by Rabbi Menachem Genack

Published by the OU Press* Distributed by KTAV Publishing House, inc.

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, known to all the “the Rav,” was one of the Torah giants and seminal Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century. For him, the Seder night was a magnificent experience, an exalted evening like no other in the year. Uplifted by the grandeur of the Seder, the Rav filled page after page of his writings and lectures with his extraordinary insights and brilliant analysis of its text, the Haggadah.

In an attempt to convey the excitement and inspiration felt by the Rav on the Seder night, many of his most remarkable and penetrating commentaries have been collected in this Haggadah. It includes excerpts from his public lectures, from published works and unpublished tapes, as well as reconstructions of his lectures on the Haggadah and Pesah (the laws of Passover). The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening offers a glimpse into the originality and brilliance of the Rav’s teachings as he uncovers new dimensions of meaning and significance in the Haggadah.

The Rav taught the senior Talmud lectures at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary for close to fifty years, influencing thousands of students and molding generations of Jewish leaders for the Orthodox and broader Jewish community. His teaching at Yeshiva University, together with his many public lectures, published essays and leadership role in communal affairs, were a major factor in the vibrant growth of Orthodox Judaism in the United States. With his towering intellect and wide-ranging interests, the Rav was a unique figure who combined profound rabbinic scholarship and the ability to define how Torah Judaism could interact with, and confront the challenges of, the modern world.