Oxford Jewish Thought

The Haggadah presents the Exodus story in the context of the four sons: the wise, the wicked, the simpleton and the one that does not know how to ask. The Haggadah text in the Ashkenazi Siddur CCC MS 133 presents the wise question as follows: 'What does the wise son say? "What are these testimonies, statutes and judgments that the Lord our G-d commanded us?"' And accordingly you will say to him, as per the laws of the Pesach sacrifice, "We may not eat an afikoman [a dessert or other foods eaten after the meal] after [we are finished eating] the Pesach sacrifice."[1]

This text of the CCC MS 133 Haggadah is based on the verse in Deuteronomy[2] with a variation: instead of stating: ‘the L-rd our G-d… Read More »

A main aspect of the Passover Seder is to remember the going out of Egypt. The centrality of the Exodus to Judaism is indicted by the fact it is mentioned no less than fifty times in the Torah,[1] and serves as the cornerstone to the Torah and Jewish belief.[2] I would like to present a brief overview of the tradition to remember the going out of Egypt and how it developed over the centuries in Jewish thought from a simplistic concept to a more complex idea. In particular, we will look at how the second two stages of the development of this idea becomes pronounced when looking at the manuscripts of Maimonides at the Bodleian Library and a mystical manuscript at the British Library, where a single word is added representing the final idea … Read More »