The “Four Children” and Their Parent

Instead of seeing the four children as four separate and distinct entities—let’s explore them as one child and one parent going back and forth in dialogue. This reading makes sense of the dialogue and its apparent disregard of the Torah’s specific answers for each question, while reflecting some very basic truths about pedagogy and parenting. There are three big internal issues in the questions as posed:

1. The descriptions of the four children include three intellectual characteristics (wise, simple, and unable to ask) and one moral characteristic (wicked), and thus there is a glaring inconsistency (a wise person can, after all, be wicked, and a wicked person can be simple, etc.)
2. The first and second children both phrase their questions in the second person (“tell me about the laws that our God has commanded you” and “tell me what the meaning of this service of yours is”). Why, then, is the first child answered in a civil way (and called “wise”), while the second child is berated (and called “wicked”)?
3. The Haggadah correctly notes that the four children are present in the Torah (the fourth child, of course, is silent, but is alluded to when the Torah advises the parent to “tell your child on that day….”). But only the third and the fourth receive the answers that the Torah prescribes.

The “wise” and “wicked” questions – objectively viewed – are equivalent to each other. They both begin with “Mah”, which can mean “what”, but can also mean “why is it…”. The child asks the parent “mah ha-edot….”. Seeing the various Passover rites, practices that are hardly universal, the child wants to know why the parent is doing these rituals. But the parent prefers to answer the easier question of “what”— “Here’s a catalogue of all you need to know about living a Jewish life, right down to the last Mishnah”. (The subtext of this encounter: “Am I not a good parent/teacher, and aren’t you a wise child?”)

But the child hadn’t asked a “what” question. The child asked the crucial “why” question – perhaps the most important question anyone, of any age, can ask. The essential message of Passover is that the service of God is unlike the service of Pharaoh, even though the same Hebrew word, avodah, is used for both. Pharaoh does not brook “why” questions. No tyrant does. No slave may ask why. But the essence of being free is the ability to ask such questions. And one is entitled to good faith attempts at answers.

So let us go back to the child. Having gotten the catalogue of rules, the child clarifies the original question asking, “tell me the meaning of this service of yours.”  Profound embarrassment ensues when the parent cannot answer. Why? Because like so many of us, the parent hasn’t thought very deeply about why we should be doing what we do as Jews, and why we want our children to continue those practices. The natural reaction to a question that exposes ignorance is to declare the question illegitimate and offensive, and lash out at the questioner. This is exactly what happens with the “second child,” who is just the same child paraphrasing the original question. But the child is called “wicked” for asking such an impertinent question. Note, that the question still has not been answered.

The child is now perplexed. The question about the Passover rites is put aside, and another question comes to the fore. It is: “mah zot”? In all simplicity (the meaning of “Tam”), the child wants to know why this abusive treatment is coming from their parent instead of patient teaching. What is this? Why is this happening? The parent uses the Torah’s prescribed answer for this question (see Exodus 13:14), with the meaning shifted in this dialogue. “God took us out of Egypt with a strong arm.” It is God’s “strong arm” that resulted in our being in God’s service. In other words, the parent, unable and unwilling to engage the essential question, now invalidates the entire point of the Passover message. Service of God becomes just like service to Pharaoh – we must simply respect the “strong arm”, the power, and not make trouble with “why” questions.

The outcome of all of this is sadly predictable. The child has now been taught, perversely, not to ask questions. [Perhaps we should read the Haggadah’s eino yode’a lishol as yode’a lo lishol – the child now knows not to ask!] And in this radio silence, the Haggadah offers the only possible advice: at p’tah lo – “you had better reopen the conversation with this child all over again.” And this time, offer the teaching of Exodus 13:8 without the caustic sarcasm. Open a serious dialogue with the child (or with the student, or the friend, or the spouse, or whoever asks) about the essential “why” questions: Ba’avur zeh asah hashem li b’tzeiti mimitzrayim… because it is for this very reason that our ancestors were freed, and why people everywhere yearn to be free: to end our constriction to the “what”, and to be able to ask what is, after all, the signature human question: “Why?”