First, Seinfeld was hugely popular and transformative for sitcoms as a genre, and the Pesah story is similarly iconic and culture-defining. So how, exactly, does Seinfeld connect to Pesah? Or, to use Reinstein’s words (and the type of question most associated with Seinfeld ), “What’s the deal with a Seinfeld themed Haggadah?” Reinstein offers two answers in his introduction.
On the contrary, this show about the daily lives and misadventures of four thirty-something New Yorkers-Jerry (Seinfeld), George, Elaine, and Kramer-is famously known as “a show about nothing.” Despite this, author Rabbi Sam Reinstein writes in his acknowledgements that watching Seinfeld was “a learning experience for me,” and that the show “provides insight into the nature of being human.” So too, this Haggadah, despite being titled The Haggadah About Nothing, aims to use Seinfeld to shed light on the Seder experience and help readers look at the Haggadah’s ideas through a new, humorous lens. Unlike superheroes or Harry Potter (both of which are topics of themed Haggadot by Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg), Seinfeld is not a sweeping epic exploring themes of good versus evil or the downtrodden against their oppressors. Although fans of the acclaimed 1990s sitcom will tell you that there’s a Seinfeld reference for every situation, the show is different from other fandoms that have recently had Haggadot devoted to them. Review of Sam Reinstein, The Haggadah About Nothing: The (Unofficial) Seinfeld Haggadah (2021).Īt first glance, Seinfeld doesn’t seem like a natural choice of a pop culture fandom upon which to base a Haggadah.
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