If the custom sounds strange, remember, it could have been worse. A fish or melon might have been chosen instead.
Order or Out of Order?
While Dayenu appears within the text of the haggadah, the other piyutim were added at the end. Rav Zedekiah ben Avraham, a 13th-century rabbi from Italy known as the Shibolet Haleket, mentions that it was customary to recite piyutim after the fourth cup of wine. He doesn’t mention which piyutim were recited by his kehillah, but we do know that during the Middle Ages seven were added:
Chasal Seder Pesach: Written by Rav Yosef Tov-Elem (Bonfils) during the 11th century as one of the yotzros for Shabbos Hagadol, it was added to the haggadah later.
Az Rov Nissim: Perhaps better known by its refrain Vayehi B’Chatzi Halaylah, it was written by the 7th-century payetan Yannai; it also appears in the yotzros for Shabbos Hagadol.
Ometz Gevurasecha: This is taken from a piyut written in the 7th century by Eliezer Hakalir, one of the most famous payetanim, for the second day of Pesach.
Ki Lo Naeh: The author and date are unknown, but it first appeared in the haggadah during the 13th century. One theory attributes it to the haggadah of Rav Yaakov of London, an English tosafist, and suggests he may have been the author.
Adir Hu: Again, the author is unknown. The first time it appears, that we know of, is the 14th-century Darmstadt Haggadah. By the 15th century it was appearing in many haggadot. The earliest existing music for Adir Hu is found in a 1644 translation of the haggadah by Johann Stephan Rittangel.
Echad Mi Yodeya? and Chad Gadya were the latest additions, and will be discussed in more detail below.
Although today most people sing all these piyutim after the fourth cup, this wasn’t always so. Some kehillos had the minhag to recite Az Rov Nissim, Ometz Gevurasecha, Ki Lo Naeh and Adir Hu before the fourth cup, as a continuation of Hallel. It was apparently the minhag of Rav Meir of Rothenburg to recite the first three of these piyutim before the fourth cup (either he didn’t know about Adir Hu or it hadn’t been written yet). But Rav Shlomo Luria, a 16th-century rav living in Poland, was against postponing the fourth cup. He insisted that people shouldn’t follow what was written in the siddurim and machzorim of his day and, instead, save the piyutim for later. Despite his protests, there are some kehillos that still have the custom to recite Az Rov Nissim, Ometz Gevurasecha and Ki Lo Naeh before the fourth cup. After the fourth cup and its after-bracha, they continue with Chasal Seder Pesach and then go on to Adir Hu and the other songs.
Echad Mi Yodeya?
The piyut Echad Mi Yodeya is a cumulative counting song that takes the form of questions and answers. Because this type of song was popular in many medieval cultures, scholars have a few questions of their own. Was the song an original Jewish song, or was it adapted from the surrounding non-Jewish culture? If it was an original Jewish song, did it originate in the Ashkenazic countries of northern France and the Germanic countries or in Eastern Europe?
The first textual evidence we have for the song is a handwritten manuscript written in both Hebrew and Yiddish that was attached to a copy of an Ashkenazic haggadah printed in Prague in 1526-27, and which also included Chad Gadya. The first time the two songs were printed as part of the haggadah was the Prague Haggadah of 1590, and since then they have become part of the Ashkenazic Seder. Was the handwritten manuscript written before 1590? Or was it written and attached to the earlier haggadah because the owner didn’t wish to purchase the new edition? We don’t know.
