JACS's Haggadah

created by Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others

INTRODUCTION Why is this Haggadah different?  More than any Jewish book of prayer or study written since the close of the Bible 2500 years ago, the Haggadah has resisted attempts to change its format or content.   The reasons are immedi...

 KADDESH   We begin Kiddush by filling a 5 oz. cup with grape juice. It is important that the cup be filled to the extent that the surface tension of the liquid forms a crown over the top of the cup. The force which keeps the liquid tog...

URCHATZ      The Leader of the Seder only, now washes his/her hands from an ewer into a bowl held by another celebrant, wiping them dry on a hand towel. We have accepted the need for leadership, we wash the leaders's hands. This s...

 KARPAS     Taking a very small piece of vegetable, less than the size of an olive, we dip it in salt water and eat it.  This whets our appetite physically and intellectually. Even the child in us wakes up asking to be t...

YACHATZ  Is matzo poor man's bread or the food of free men? Can it be both? If we regard it as the Bread of Affliction why did we carry dough on our backs out of Egypt, to let it bake in the hot sun without leavening and rising? Can one Matzo...

 IN THE BEGINNING - MITCHILO When we were commanded to tell the Haggadah to our children this is what was being referred to. The actual Haggadah begins here. The word Haggadah means "Tough talk". Hard words to swallow: "Words, hard as sinews"...