Edmon Rodman says the scroll "remains a uniquely Jewish form." J. Nathan Matias/Creative Commons

In a world of books and pages and digitized memory, why do Jews hold onto the scroll?

As Shavuot and its focus on receiving the Torah approach, I must ask: Could it be that rolled along together somewhere in our minds with the love of Torah is the love of scroll?

We are fascinated with book forms that — when opened, extended, unfolded, or unrolled — change shape before our eyes. In the scroll, we have a form that can also expand our minds.

Edmon Rodman says the scroll "remains a uniquely Jewish form." J. Nathan Matias/Creative Commons

In a world of books and pages and digitized memory, why do Jews hold onto the scroll?

As Shavuot and its focus on receiving the Torah approach, I must ask: Could it be that rolled along together somewhere in our minds with the love of Torah is the love of scroll?

We are fascinated with book forms that — when opened, extended, unfolded, or unrolled — change shape before our eyes. In the scroll, we have a form that can also expand our minds.

State-of-the-art Szyk Haggadah out in limited edition

The latest work by Arthur Szyk is going for $15,000 — it's a Haggadah.

Irvin Ungar, an antiquarian bookseller and Szyk devotee, is publishing a new edition of Szyk's 1940 Haggadah that he calls state-of-the art nearly 57 years after the painter and cartoonist's death.

"No Jewish artist has been more devoted to liberty and social justice than Szyk," said Ungar, the president of the Arthur Szyk Society. "No artist has done more to translate Jewish values into art. His Haggadah is the great book of freedom."

Szyk (pronounced Shick) was a Polish Jew whose works could give new life to ancient traditions or eviscerate a Hitler or Mussolini.

Authors' 'passion for Passover' spurs unique collection

Talk about doing something from A to Z: In "300 Ways to Ask the Four Questions" authors Murray Spiegel and Ricky Stein parlay a shared passion into a potpourri of translations, with versions of the traditional Pesach questions in languages from Abkhaz to Zulu.

Offering renditions of the text in living languages, ancient languages, sign languages, and "constructed" languages (such Klingon), the authors want readers to "have fun," said Spiegel, who called the book "a modern-day Rosetta stone — all the languages and tongues living together in the same document, all trying to convey more or less the same thing."

Spiegel, with a background in speech research for telecommunications, and Stein, a longtime pharmacist, did not set out to collect hundreds of translations. The idea evolved after the two New Jersey residents met in a choir and discovered that they were both involved in the same activity, gathering the questions in a few languages from friends.

Among the many Haggadot and related books just out for this Pesach is "The Jewish World Family Haggadah," with photographs by Zion Ozeri and edited by Shoshana Silberman, consultant to the Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education (ibooks, $9.95). Ozeri, creator of The Jewish Lens, a curriculum for middle and high school students that uses photography to teach Jewish values (and has been adopted locally by the Bergen County High School of Jewish Studies), has photographed Jewish communities all over the world. Some no longer exist, but the stunning, poignant photographs remain to tell their story.

Like skilled novelists, Jewish cooks miss no opportunity for symbolism.

Think of Chanukah latkes sizzling in oil or Purim's hamantashen, a filled cookie that's a metaphor for a story within a story about a queen who married under false pretenses and revealed her secret to save her people.

Among Jewish holidays, Passover is the most abundant in symbols, which are turned into ingredients that are chopped, braised and baked into dishes such as matzoh farfel, vegetables as green as spring, and pastries puffed with eggs.