Why is Passover different from all other nights? 3 essential reads on the Jewish holiday

Gradually, Jews came to see prayer as a form of sacrifice, one that could be performed anywhere in the world. It was an idea rooted in biblical passages drawing comparisons between the two: Psalm 141:2, for example, which says “Take my prayer as an offering of incense, my upraised hands as an evening sacrifice.”

“Following the destruction,” Boyd writes, “the way that Jewish communities worshiped God changed forever” – and has kept evolving today.

One of the most famous Passover examples? The Maxwell House Haggadah – yes, like the coffee company.

Thousands of different Haggadahs exist, each one supplementing the core store from Exodus with different readings. But in the United States, one of the most popular for decades was a simple version “dreamed up in 1932 by the coffee corporation and a Jewish advertising executive” who grew up on New York’s Lower East Side, explains Kerri Steinberg, a professor at Otis College of Art and Design who researches advertising’s impact on religion. During the Great Depression, Maxwell House followed his firm’s advice to distribute a Haggadah for free with each can of coffee in an effort to boost sales.

Maxwell House’s Haggadah has become a classic, with even the White House using it. But it’s also changed with the times: nixing words like “thee” and “thine,” for example. There’s even a special edition themed for hit TV show “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”

“In a sea of thousands of Haggadahs, it is Maxwell House’s that has become the de facto representative of American Jewish life,” Steinberg wrote.

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

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