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The mandate to tell the story of the Exodus on Passover would seem best addressed by opening up the book of Exodus and then reciting and discussing its first 15 chapters, from oppression to the Song of the Sea. Instead, the Haggadah is a pastiche of biblical verses and rabbinic passages cobbled together. One of these rabbinic cobbling acts is the weaving the sages did when encountering the four verses that mandate to tell our children our master story:

Exodus 12:26-27: “And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this rite?’ you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord…’ ”

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Exodus 13:8: “And you shall explain to your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt.’ ”

Exodus 13:14: “And when, in time to come, your son asks you, saying, ‘What does this mean to you?’ you shall say to him, ‘It was with a mighty hand that the Lord brought us out from Egypt, the house of bondage.’ ”

Deuteronomy 6:20: “When in time your children ask you, ‘What do the decrees, laws and rules mean…’ ”

The rabbis were troubled by these repeated mentions because they operated with a hermeneutic theory that there are no unnecessary words in the Torah. This repetition must teach additional laws that are not immediately obvious.

Their conclusion is not that there are four different stories or depths of interpretation but four different recipients, whose learning needs vary. All must be told this story. All must learn it and be able to transmit it. Transmission is not the same as acquisition. You have to own knowledge in order to pass it on. But the rabbis had different versions of how this transmission should take place.

The Mechilta version of the Four Sons (parshat Bo 18) is the one we currently follow, which typecasts children into four learning categories:

There are four sons: one wise, one wicked, one simple, and one who does not know how to ask.

  1. The wise one, what does he say? “What are these testimonies, statutes, and laws that the Lord, our God, commanded us?” You must engage him in the laws of the pesach (sacrifice): one cannot serve the pesach after the afikoman.
  2. The wicked one what does he say? “What is all this work to you?” To you and not to him for he has separated himself from the rest and is a heretic, therefore, you must hit his teeth and say to him, “Because of this that God did for me when he took me from Egypt.” Me and not you for had he been there he would not have been redeemed.
  3. The simple one, what does he say? “What is this?” And you shall say to him: “With a strong arm, God led us out of Egypt out of the house of bondage.”
  4. And as for the one who does not know how to ask, you engage him, as it says: “And you shall tell your son on that very day.”

The Jerusalem Talmud (Pesachim 10:4) has an alternate version of the Four Sons, and although the differences are minor, the meaning of the differences is significant in terms of the larger issue at hand: how can one master a story well enough to share it?

Rabbi Chiya teaches: The Torah speaks of four sons: the wise, the wicked, the stupid, and the one who does not know how to ask.

  1. The wise one, what does he say? “What are the testimonies, statues and laws that the Lord, our God, commanded us?” You should say to him: “With a strong arm God took us out of Egypt, our of the house of bondage.”
  2. The wicked one, what does he say? “What is this work to you? What is this work that you burden us with every year?” Since he has separated himself from the community you say to him: “Because of this God did this for me,” for me, for this man, he did not do it, for had this man been in Egypt he would never have been worthy to have been redeemed from there.
  3. The stupid one, what does he say? “What is this?” You even teach him the laws of pesachim, that one does not partake of the afikoman after the pesach so that he will not stand in this group and enter another.
  4. The one that does not know how to ask, you engage him first…

One meaningful difference in these two versions is the nature of the work the wicked son dismisses, since the Hebrew for work, “avodah,” can imply both physical labor and divine service. In the Mechilta version, work is a function of the latter. Avodah refers to the paschal lamb sacrifice that involved intensive labor and effort. The wicked son cares nothing for the sacrifice and belittles its significance. We hit him in the mouth as a symbolic suggestion that we quiet his speech, quelling the kind of skepticism that can be contagious if unchecked.

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Dr. Erica Brown is a writer and educator who lectures widely on subjects of Jewish interest. This essay was excerpted and condensed from “Seder Talk: The Conversational Haggada” (Maggid Books), available at www.korenpub.com and at local Jewish bookstores.