Only with the invention of printing could average householders dream of owning separate copies of a Haggadah for everyone sitting around the table. In the early years, the leader of the household might own a handwritten version on parchment, but even that was rare given the cost: a single Haggadah required the hides of two to three sheep or calves--that’s twenty to thirty animals for a family seder of ten--not to mention the labor for curing the hides into something to write on, and copying prayers letter by letter.

In the eleventh century, people began devising mnemonics of the Seder’s order, presumably as an aid to memory. There were many of them, but one, in particular, stuck, and is used nowadays almost universally. Almost every printed Haggadah begins with it, arranging it in word pairs that are often sung as part of the actual Seder ritual. A “table of contents” has become part of “contents” for which it was once the “table.”

-- Lawrence Hoffman
 


haggadah Section: Introduction