Art Brings the Passover Story to Life

HOUSTON CHRONICLE
By Menachem Wecker

A page from an illustrated Haggadah

TEXAS - According to Marc Michael Epstein, professor of religion at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and author of The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination (Yale University Press, May 2011), there are varying degrees of artistic expression at different Seders. "More discerning and aesthetically minded people tend to implicitly understand that the mandate to 'expand upon the recounting of the Exodus,'" one of the central commandments in the Haggadah, "is not limited to text," he said. "A beautiful book with engaging, even mysterious illustrations can enhance the experience of putting oneself in the very shoes of those who hastily traversed the borders of the Land of Egypt on the night of the Exodus, fleeing the bondage of Egypt's Pharaoh for the service of Sinai's God," he said. [link]