When I was a student in Midreshet Moriah, I was very fortunate to spend a year and a half learning with Rav Yitzchak Mirsky. During that time, Rav Mirsky published a Haggadah with his own commentary. One d’var Torah he shared with us left an everlasting impression on me. I saw it as a personal challenge to follow through on year after year.

Rav Mirsky asks, “why do we call the Haggadah by the name Haggadah”? He answers that it simply comes from the word lehagid, to tell. We might then ask, perhaps the Haggadah could have been named something more descriptive, like sipur yetziat Mitzrayim, recounting the story of the Exodus. After all, we know hamarbeh harei zeh meshubach, the more one talks about it, the better it is. The Baal Haggadah could have used that as the title of the Haggadah but chose not to.

To understand why the title “Haggadah” was chosen, it is helpful to look at where the word comes from: the root is hey, gimmel, daled. In Parshat Bo in 13:8 we have the passuk in which the directive to recount the story of Hashem taking Bnei Yisrael out of Egypt is given. The passuk reads:

וְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה ה' לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרָיִם.

And you shall explain to your son on that day, “It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt.”

Why did the Torah use this word והגדת, explain? It is one thing for the Baal Hagaddah to use this word, but the Torah had many other options. There could have been a more specific directive given, for example, tell your son, recount for your son, but instead the word explain is used. To better understand this word choice, we must dig a bit further and look at the first time we see the word in the Torah. The first time we see the word hagid is when Hashem speaks to Adam in Bereishit 2:11. This is just after Adam and Chava had eaten from the forbidden fruits in Gan Eden, their eyes were “opened,” and they realized they were not clothed.

וַיֹּאמֶר מִי הִגִּיד לְךָ כִּי עֵירֹם אָתָּה הֲמִן הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיךָ לְבִלְתִּי אֲכָל מִמֶּנּוּ אָכָלְתָּ.

Hashem asks, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat of the tree from which I had forbidden you to eat?” 

Hashem’s choice of words is interesting, since there was no one else in Gan Eden to have made Adam and Chava aware of their nakedness. Rav Mirsky points out that in this example, the meaning of hagid is to teach something new to someone that they did not know before that moment. Hashem was implying that someone made Adam and Chava aware of the concept of their not being clothed.

Another place in which the word hagid is used with a similar meaning is in the story of Yosef telling his brothers to return to their father, Yakov, to share that Yosef was in fact still alive. Bereishit 45:13 reads:

וְהִגַּדְתֶּם לְאָבִי אֶת כָּל כְּבוֹדִי בְּמִצְרַיִם וְאֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר רְאִיתֶם וּמִהַרְתֶּם וְהוֹרַדְתֶּם אֶת אָבִי הֵנָּה.

And you must tell my father everything about my high station in Egypt and all that you have seen; and bring my father here with all speed.

This was new information to Yakov, similar to the previous example in which Hashem asked Adam who had told him about his nakedness. The brothers were being told to tell Yakov about this new information about Yosef being alive.

This is precisely the challenge Rav Mirsky posed to each one of us. Teaching the Haggadah each year can be a hard task. On one hand, the information must be taught to a variety of levels depending on who is sitting at your Seder table. It must be engaging and encourage the asking of questions. Children have the opportunity to see the story of yetziat Mitzrayim through their eyes as they grow. Their perspectives and thoughts change with their maturation. Simultaneously, a parent has the responsibility to think about the messages being imparted to the children each year. What new ideas are being taught to our children, ourselves, our guests? 

The challenge to teach something new each year is real. How can we do that? The story has not changed; we know how it ends. There are no new discoveries about yetziat Mitzrayim, the exodus from Egypt. This is, in fact, the challenge the Baal Haggadah was posing to each of us when choosing the name Haggadah — that each year we must learn something new. 

It is quite amazing to see that each year, new Haggadot come out, that each year new perspectives on the Seder and Haggadah are shared. We are, in fact, able to learn new ideas each year. This is perhaps a far larger message for life in general: we may at times feel stagnant, that life looks the same from year to year, when in fact it is our repsonsibility to try and view every scenario from a new perspective. To learn something new, to grow in a new way. Since this Pesach may again look different from past years shared with family and friends, it is my hope that we are all safe and that whomever we share the Seder with, we are able to share new Torah and old Torah in a way that enriches each of our experiences.