Within the Jewish tradition, the celebration of Passover provides an annual opportunity for the Jewish people to imagine themselves in the ancient past of their ancestors, with an awareness of both the present and the future. The Haggadah is the means through which observers take this temporal journey, blending story and ritual with reflection and inquiry. Tablet's modern take on the traditional text recognizes its critical function, marrying written and visual worlds that are equally imaginative and immersive. Unlike previous iterations of the Haggadah, in which artwork is simply placed alongside the text, Shai Azoulay’s is woven directly into it – creating a magical effect, a cohesive textual and visual embrace with the power to transform users' personal and familial experiences of the Passover Seder.

This publication is an excellent example of Azoulay’s masterly ability to create a multidimensional image within a two dimensional medium. The rich materiality of brush strokes and robust color palette make for a dynamic set of illustrations that portray dream-like scenes in which the real and the surreal are rendered transposable. Through evocative and emotional gestures Azoulay juxtaposes the theological and the theatrical; the traditional and the modern; the poetic and the spiritual; the mystical and the myth. Constructing ethereal scenes in which the linearity of time, place and physical dimension are expropriated from meaning, Azoulay’s illustrations relay the spiritual undertone of the sacred content while avoiding explicit depictions and descriptive portrayals of the text.