Are You Ready for an Emoji Haggadah?

Post date: Jan 11, 2017 8:13:26 AM

The English language and translation practices have changed since 1770 when Alexander Alexander published his very first English translation of the Haggadah of Pesach in Georgian London. We can show this by comparing just two milestone translations.

Translating the wicked (Rasha) of the 4 sons Alexander renders:

The wicked saith, what mean you by this service? by which expression, he draweth himself from the community and denies the omnipotence. Then shalt thou say unto him, on this account did the Lord do this unto me, on my going out of Egypt, to me and not to thee, for hadest thou been there, thou wouldest not have been redeemed.

In comparison, Nathan Englander in his translation of the 2002 New American Haggadah translates:

The Evil One, what does he say? “What does this type of worship mean to you? To you and not to him. And by divorcing himself from the community, he denies our very essence. Moreover, you must blunt the bite of his words, by telling him: “For this purpose the Lord labored on my behalf by taking me out of Egypt.” For me and not for him. Had he been there, he would stand undelivered.

Word choice, grammatical structures, spelling and omission of difficult to translate terms as opposed to a very explanatory translation are just a few of the difference. But the Rasha, the Wicked/ Evil Son of today won’t be sitting with a print Haggadah in his lap. He will be busy using his cellphone on or under the table…

So maybe an emoji Haggadah would be a good idea? Just look at this rendering of Had Gadya:

CyberEnglish and Emojis in English translations might sound too far for traditional readers but there is actually an Emoji Bible Translation available of iTunes. The translator, who is unnamed but represented instead by an emoji with sunglasses claims that using these symbols will help make the Bible more approachable for youth these days.

More about this project HERE.

The above rendering of Had Gadya was created by me using their Bible Emojis creator (with one minor change): http://www.bibleemoji.com/

Would be interesting to see how young Haggadah readers will react to this.