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Is there an official haggadah?

How does one version of a haggadah have authority over another?

Is there a most popular one, a controversial one?

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    I'm not sure what you mean by "version".
    – Double AA ♦
    Dec 10, 2019 at 12:41
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    Does this answer your question? What are the minimum required sections of the Hagadah that must be said?
    – Heshy
    Dec 10, 2019 at 13:27
  • What is the notion of official
    – kouty
    Dec 10, 2019 at 20:09
  • @kouty well, would you use a haggadah that I wrote? How do you decide which one to use?
    – Nephilim
    Dec 10, 2019 at 20:12
  • @DoubleAA there is “the survivors haggadah”, there’s one publishedby chabad.org, there’s “sammy spiders first haggadah” etc. How do you decide which to use?
    – Nephilim
    Dec 10, 2019 at 20:17

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Traditional editions of the Hagada all share roughly the same core text, and many surround it with various kinds of commentary and supplementary materials. The core text itself is authorized by tradition; in that sense, I would say that any edition that includes the traditional core text is qualitatively more authoritative than one that does not. Other than that, I don't think any particular edition or commentary would claim authority over any others. They're all parallel ways of approaching the core text and experience. So many thousands of editions have been published through the ages and around the world that it would be impossible to crown one as "most popular."

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    It may be worth distinguishing the 'story' parts and the Halakhic procedure parts (eg. text of Kiddush blessings hallel hand-washing) which have their own external to the Haggadah existence and structure and debates. In a sense a Haggadah that lists Mayim acharonim as a step is equally authoritative (whatever that means)
    – Double AA ♦
    Dec 10, 2019 at 16:42
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  1. Haggadah is a Rabbinical text.
  2. [All] Rabbinical texts (Beraytot, Mishnayos, Gemmoros, Siddur) do not have "an official version" as there was no single Rabbinical court to authorize it.
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  • Excuse my nitpicking, but the Mishna did have an official text when it was compiled. Being transmitted orally, if course, lead to variations over the centuries. Not arguing the other examples.
    – Mordechai
    Dec 11, 2019 at 21:37

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