The Haggadah (Hebrew: הגדה) comes from the Torah command - “And you shall tell (v'Higadeta) your children on that day...” Although the minimal fulfillment of this mitzvah is a simple recounting of the going out of Egypt and explaining a few of the Pesach symbols, proper fulfillment requires much more. God commands us to retell the story to our children and we do so by celebrating Passover by having a Seder using the Haggadah as a Passover guide. Over the centuries additions have been made to the Haggadah to enhance this mitzvah. Many of these additions gained such wide acceptance that they became part of the Haggadah. Two of those additions are the singing of Chad Gadya, and another is 'Dayeinu.' Original Haggadahs date back to Rav Saadia Gaon (882 CE - 942 CE), Rashi (1040 - 1105) and Maimonides (1135 - 1204). The metamorphosis of the Haggadah concluded in the late middle ages, aided by the invention of the printing press, which enabled the basic Ashkenazic version (which had been accepted even in Sephardic communities). The text is based upon the Haggadah of Rav Amram Gaon, who headed the Babylonian Yeshiva of Sura between 856-876 CE. By the end of the sixteenth century, only twenty-five Haggadah editions had been printed. This number increased to thirty-seven during the seventeenth century, and 234 during the eighteenth century. It is not until the nineteenth century, when 1,269 separate editions were produced, that a significant shift is seen toward printed Haggadot as opposed to manuscripts. From 1900 - 1960 alone, over 1,100 Haggadot were printed. Over time, the main portions of the text of the Haggadah have remained mostly the same since their original compilation. | 
