Had Gadya ("One Only Kid")

The song Had Gadya is one of the oldest known songs in Seder service, and the only one written in Aramaic. According to sources, it was originally written in Judeo-German and then translated into Aramaic. It was published in the 1590 Prague Haggadah printed in both Judeo-German and Aramaic.

The central motif of Had Gadya already appears in our ancient literature: "Because you drowned someone, you were drowned, and in the end those who drowned you will be drowned." (Ethics of the Fathers, 2:6) A similar theme appears in the Talmud: 'Ten strong things were created in the world. A mountain is hard, but it may be cut by metal; metal is hard, but it may be softened by fire; fire is hard, but it may be extinguished by water; water is strong but the clouds bear it; the clouds are hard, but the wind disperses them; the wind is hard, but the body withstands it; the body is hard, but fear breaks it; fear is hard, but wine alleviates it; wine is hard, but sleep removes its influences; and deal is the hardest of them all." (Baba Batra 10a) The motif is the same in all these passages: there is reward and punishment, and there is relative order among all the objects in Creation.