The Haggadah is an instruction book for how to observe the festival of Passover. It consists of blessings, instructions for ritual food customs, songs, and a series of texts. Most of the text is from the Mishnah portion of the Talmud, which was written down around 200 CE,  although some of the material seems to date to Temple times and some of it was added as late as the Middle Ages. The Talmud and the later works are rabbinic efforts to explain exactly how Jews ought to interpret the commandments from the Torah and apply them in daily life. The Haggadah tells us how to observe the commandment from Exodus ( Shmot ) 13:8, which says "you shall tell your son on that day, saying: it is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt." 

Passover has not always been observed exactly the way we do it today. While the First and Second Temples were standing in Jerusalem, Passover was observed as a banquet following the ritual sacrifice of the Pascal lambs at the Temple, as outlined in Leviticus 23:5. After the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70, the animal sacrifice aspect was abandoned and the rabbis adopted a method of observance based on the Greco-Roman practice of a " symposium " or ritual meal, including the discussion of the story of the Exodus from Egypt. 

The contents of the Haggadah evolved over the following several centuries before becoming codified. Fragments of written Haggadahs from the 8th and 9th centuries have been found, and by the 12th century Moses Maimonides included a version in his  Mishneh Torah  that is very similar to what we use today. 


haggadah Section: Introduction
Source: CAJ