Passover in January: A Look at the Four Children

By Hazzan Jacob Sandler.

While working with this week’s Bar Mitzvah boy, I kept getting excited by familiar verses in his Torah readings, pausing to ask if he recognized them. Of course, like many – including my own family – they do their seder in mostly English, so he didn’t right away. But when I translated them, and showed my student the Haggadah, he agreed that it’s pretty cool that the seder quotes his Bar Mitzvah portion!

Where? None other than the Four Children. The wise, the so-called wicked, the simple, and the one who doesn’t even know how to ask a question. They each have their chance to ask their question, and they each get an answer. Most of the questions and answers are from Parashat Bo.

According to the haggadah, the wise child asks, [and I’m paraphrasing], “What’s with all these rules and laws?” This is the question that comes later in the book of Deuteronomy. The answer? You should teach them all the laws of Passover, down to the Afikomen.
The wicked child has an attitude, and asks (again paraphrasing), “What’s it to you?” And the Rabbis highlight the word ‘to you’ and suggest that he excludes himself and therefore would not have been redeemed had he been there. To him we say “It is because of what Hashem did for me when I came out of Egypt” (Ex. 13:8 – parashat Bo).

The simple one simply asks, “What is this?” To that one, we respond, “With a mighty hand, Hashem brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” (Ex. 13:14 – parashat Bo)

Ironically, the one who can’t even ask a question gets the same quote as the Wicked child. But this time, it is not to emphasize the ‘me’ but to model that we should each see ourselves as having left Egypt personally.

This section of the haggadah is based primarily on the Jerusalem Talmud (as opposed to Babylonian Talmud which is a bit more familiar to most). But the Talmud version and the haggadah version have some discrepancies. 

For one, the simple one is referred to as “the stupid one” – which I’m glad was changed. As an educator I know that one should not be labelled in such a way, as we all have different kinds of intelligences, and not one of us can be reduced to just “stupid.” That’s a lesson in and of itself.

The other discrepancy I want to share is that the answers given to Wise and the Simple are flipped from the Talmud to the Haggadah. Why might that be?

To the simple child, who asks “What is this?” we begin with the laws and rules of Passover. Because sometimes, before we can fully grasp why we do something, we must be sure we understand how to do something. Na’aseh v’nishma – we will do and then understand. This is how we teach tefillot in the religious school – first we learn how to sing the prayers, then as they get better at reading we read them as we sing, and as they get older we dive deeper into the meaning and personal connection to those words. Of course we mix it all in at different levels, but we want them to have the practical skill and that often comes before the personal meaning.

And why do we answer the wise one with something so simple as “with a might hand…”? It is easy, when looking at the 4 labels to assume the Wise child is the ideal one. Who wouldn’t want to be the ‘wise’ if the other options are wicked, simple (or even stupid) or not knowing how to ask? But perhaps all the children have strengths and weaknesses. The wise one may agonize over the intellectual side of the rules, and completely miss out on the emotional depth available. To that one, we zoom out and show the bigger picture. 

Perhaps the haggadah includes all four children precisely so that we each get the answers we need to hear for the various aspects of ourselves. If we think ourselves wise we should be humble and recognize the wisdom of simple truths. If we think ourselves simple, we should stretch ourselves to embrace the details and scour them for meaning. If we find ourselves disengaging, we should be inspired by those who feel it so deeply and personally. And if we’re not sure how to ask, we should be grateful for others’ questions and answers. Eventually, ours will come too.