The Corner asked some of our friends: What do you recommend reading to celebrate Passover?
ELLIOT ABRAMS
Passover provides the perfect moment for Exodus: watching the old movie again (with Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan), reading the novel that was the basis for the movie, and even reading the version written by Moses — also called “Exodus” and far briefer than the Leon Uris version! The Uris novel and the film remind us of the tragedies, hopes, and sacrifices that went into creating the State of Israel, a wonderful lesson for the Festival of Freedom.
– Elliot Abrams is senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
MARSHALL L. BREGER
Aaron Wildavsky’s Moses as a Political Leader assists one in understanding the Bible generally and the Passover story specifically in political terms. The political saga of the Jewish people is a story worth remembering. The Haggadah, of course, mentions Moses briefly only once. It correctly tells the story of the Exodus with the emphasis on the divine. But the politics of the Exodus saga should not be forgotten.
– Marshall L. Breger is a professor of law at Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law.
LEON KASS
My favorite Passover book is Exodus, where the account of the deliverance from Egypt is treated not as a generic tale of national liberation, but as preparation for the formation of a people that will honor the equality of every human being and devote itself to righteousness and holiness, looking up to the divine (rather than to nature or to human power and cleverness). I also admire Rabbi Nathan Laufer’s Leading the Passover Journey: The Seder’s Meaning Revealed, the Haggadah’s Story Retold, which makes sense of the entire Passover Seder, showing how its visual, kinesthetic, and narrative elements all conspire to enable each generation of readers to recreate for themselves the remarkable movement from slavery to peoplehood, with a vocation we are blessed to have inherited and to be able to transmit yet one more generation.
– Leon Kass is the Hertog fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
DAVID KLINGHOFFER
Every year I buy a new Haggadah commentary and this year’s is among the best. Brand new and based on Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik’s writings, it’s called The Seder Night: An Exalted Evening. Rich material, full of insights about freedom, parenthood, creation, and more. I’ve been drawing on it extensively in my Beliefnet blog, Kingdom of Priests, as, e.g., in this about David Brooks’s recent call for a return to Egyptian slavery!
– David Klinghoffer is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.
KEN WEINSTEIN
My favorite Passover book, until Leon Kass completes his commentary on Exodus, is the ArtScroll Haggadah by Rabbi Joseph Elias. A magisterial volume, Elias helps us fulfill the obligation to view ourselves as part of the Exodus from Egypt. A close second is Marcy Goldman’s A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking — it wouldn’t be Pesach in our house without matzo brittle.
– Ken Weinstein is CEO of the Hudson Institute.