One word comes to mind when I read the answers the Haggadah instructs us to give to our children’s questions: ‘lo’.

On October 29, 1969, the message ‘lo’ became the first ever to travel between two computers connected via the ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet. The truncated transmission traveled about 400 miles between the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Stanford Research Institute. The electronic dispatch was supposed to be the word “login,” but only the first two letters were successfully sent before the system crashed. Many are convinced that the meaning and efficacy of messages sent via the Internet has been declining ever since.

The Haggadah’s answers are abridged versions of the Torah’s responses, and even the latter leave us wondering, “where is the rest of the message?” How can we respond to a child’s question about the meaning of our observances and life choices with a one-sentence answer? Why does the Haggadah offer these responses when we are about to tell the story of our history that will answer their questions in great detail?

The reason is ‘lo’. That first Internet message may have been truncated but it led to the billions of messages sent each day. That ‘lo’ nourished the growth of all electronic communication. The system crashed. The intended text was savaged, but ‘lo’ was the first seed of all our current messages.

The Haggadah’s responses are the first seeds of a process that will flourish into healthy and substantial communication. They are only the opening salvo in a meaningful conversation.

The Torah and the Haggadah do not intend to offer comprehensive answers to our children’s questions, but to nurture the conversations we should regularly have about our choices and way of life, conversations we cannot afford to avoid. The Haggadah’s responses are meant to convey to the questioners that a conversation is possible; we are willing to discuss these most important issues in our lives. The possibility of a conversation opens the door to questions, and it is only through asking that we become choosers.

The Foundation Stone™ is our ‘lo’, our way of saying that conversations about every issue and question are possible. We thank you for joining in our conversation and we hope that your Pesach is the beginning of fruitful and meaningful conversations about the most precious parts of our lives.

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Learn & discover the Divine prophecies with Rabbi Simcha Weinberg from the holy Torah, Jewish Law, Mysticism, Kabbalah and Jewish Prophecies. The Foundation Stone™ is the ultimate resource for Jews, Judaism, Jewish Education, Jewish Spirituality & the holy Torah.

We explained in “Who Is Really Talking?: The Wicked Child” and “The Child Who Doesn’t Care to Ask,” that the children’s questions are making a statement about the way they perceive their parents; “What does the Simple Son ask?”

What is the Torah context of the Simple Child’s question? “It shall come to pass, when God will bring you to the land of the Canaanites, as He swore to you and your forefathers, and He will have given it to you; then you shall set apart every first issue of the womb to God, and of every first issue that is dropped by livestock that belong to you, the males are God’s. Every first issue donkey you shall redeem with a lamb or kid; if you do not redeem it, you shall axe he back of its neck. And you shall redeem every human firstborn among your sons (Exodus 11-13).”

The child watches as his father either, spends more on redeeming a first born animal than he does on redeeming a first born son, or, kills the animal rather than redeem it! It is not that the father doesn’t obey the law; he kills the animal if he doesn’t redeem it, as required by the Torah! The father loses a fortune of money to not observe the Mitzvah of redemption! So why observe the law of killing the animal?

What does the Kohen say when the father approaches with his child? “Which do you prefer: to give away your firstborn son, who is the first issue of his mother’s womb, or do you prefer to redeem him for five shekels as you are required to do by the Torah?” What kind of question is that? Imagine a father responding, “Take the kid!” What about, “Let me think about it!”

The Kohen is asking the father whether he is aware of the challenge of raising a son the way a Kohen will raise the child, with values, ethics, and spirituality? “Are you prepared? Are you willing to pay for the privilege of educating your child?”

Most of us are so focused on the joy of having our first child that we don’t even think about the challenges of raising a child in our environment. The Kohen challenges us, who are taking the “Simple” approach to consider the real challenges of parenting.

The “Simple” child is responding to his father’s strange behavior with, “Whaaaa?” He is telling his father that the home environment is simplistic. He is at a total loss to understand his parents’ behavior.

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We explained in “Who Is Really Talking?: The Wicked Child,” that the child reflects the Makom, the environment, in which he is being raised. What is the context of the Child Who Doesn’t Care Enough to Ask?

“For a seven-day period shall you eat Matzot, and on the seventh day there shall be a festival to God. Matzot shall be eaten throughout the seven-day period; no chametz may be seen in your possession, not may leaven be seen in your possession in all your borders (Exodus 13:6-7).” The “conversation” with this child begins in the following verse, “And you shall tell your son.” No question. He didn’t ask.

The paragraph began with the Pesach story, without mention of the offering, without any explanation of Matzah, without any hint as to why Chametz is prohibited. There is nothing other than observance without involvement. The parents don’t care. Neither does the child; he doesn’t bother to ask. It is not the Child who doesn’t ask; it’s the parents!

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“What does the Wicked Son say?” “Say,” not ask, because nothing says more about a person than the questions he asks.

What’s the context of the Wicked Child’s question? Moshe’s presentation of the laws of the Pesach Offering to the elders of Israel: “Draw forth or buy for yourselves one of the flock of your families, and slaughter the pesach-offering. You shall take a bundle of hyssop and dip it into the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with some of the blood that is in the basin, and as for you, no man shall leave the entrance of his house until morning. God will pass through to smite Egypt, and He will see the blood that is on the lintel and the two doorposts; and God will pass over the entrance and He will not permit the destroyer to enter your homes to smite. You shall observe this matter as a decree for yourself and for your children forever Exodus 12:21-24).”

God’s presentation of these laws had a much different emphasis. Moshe stresses the blood on the lintel and doorposts, and implies that as the key element of the offering! The child of future generations sees this and asks, “What is this service to you?”

He is asking the parents of future generations why they continue to practice an Offering of Protection, which is how the Pesach has just been presented, in this generation, so many years later?

Or, in other words, this child is asking parents who seem to have no connection to their service of God. He is asking parents who pray, and study, and observe, without any sense of personal connection to all their religious observance, what we describe as “Avodah Zarah,” worship that is a stranger to me; worship that does not reflect me or on me. This child is addressing parents he perceives as wicked! This is not a wicked child, but one who feels that he lives in a wicked environment.

The parents hear that they will be perceived as wicked, and will still, “come to the land that God will give you, as He has spoken,” which was the very issue that led Abraham to ask, “How will my children merit Israel if they are undeserving?”

“The people bowed their heads and prostrated themselves (12:27),” over the news that they would inherit the land and have children (Rashi). They prostrated themselves because they heard that they will inherit the land despite having children who will perceive them as wicked.

How will they merit the land if they are so perceived?

Because they are parents who are listening carefully enough to hear the child’s question with all its implications for them! They do not respond with their answer, their beliefs, or their opinions. They respond according to the question. Or, as the verse teaches, “no man shall leave the entrance of his house until morning;” they will create a safe environment for their children, one in which children will feel safe asking, and know that their parents will not respond with canned speeches, but to the question and how it is asked!

A safe place. A nourishing place. A secure place. A “Makom,” as we begin the section of the Four Sons: “Baruch HaMakom,” “Blessed is the Omnipresent,” the first time that Jewish tradition refers to God as “The Place,” is here in the Haggadah!

What is the next stage of the Haggadah?

“Tzei u-Lemad,” “Go out and learn!” The Talmud always says, “Come and hear.” The Zohar uses, “Come and see.” The Haggadah says, “Now that you have succeeded in creating a real Makom, a safe Makom, a nourishing Makom, “Go out into the world and explore and learn, and apply.”

A Chassid, a pious person, lives miLifnim meshurat haDin, from the inside of the letter of the law, meaning, he first lives IN the law, in a Makom, a place in which the laws speak to him, nourish him, guide him, and then he goes milifnim, from the inside, and Tzei, goes out and applies what he has experienced inside his Makom.

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“We may appear great in an employment beneath our merit, but we often appear little in ones too great for us (Francois de La Rouchefoucauld, 1650).”

It’s daunting to go from being the best slave in the world to becoming one of a “Kingdom of Priests.” How could the slaves, even those who were at the top of their field, go so quickly from being a slave to becoming royalty? “This year we are slaves; next year we will be free,” sounds great, but it seems to me that people wonder how about their role after the Messiah comes.

There’s an old Jewish joke about a man, the best tailor in the area, who comes home from synagogue very depressed. “Sweetheart,” he says to his wife, “you know how I finally got my tailor shop off to a good start and we have some money in the bank? It’s soon gonna end!”

His wife is shocked; “What happened?” she cried.

“It’s not what happened, but what will happen. The Rabbi spoke today and said that the Messiah is coming and we’re all going to move to Israel. Do you realize how many tailors there will be? We’ll never be able to make a living. I am the best tailor in this city, but what chance will I have competing against all the Jewish tailors in the world? We’re ruined!”

His wife hugs and assures him, “We survived the Crusades, pogroms, and the Czar. We’ll survive the Messiah as well!”

What happens if our next job is too great for us? We are so expert at living as Diaspora Jews, the focus of the world’s hatred; will we be able to rise to lining to the much larger job as a “Kingdom of Priests”?

The Haggadah offers two answers:

The first is the discussion about the Wicked Son, the first child question mentioned in the Torah: Moshe is speaking to them about the great courage necessary to bring the Pesach offering and he speaks of the child who will ask, as we describe the Wicked Son asking, “What is this work to you?” – You’re a slave! What are you doing acting as a super hero in front of the Egyptians? All of a sudden you think you’re this holy Jew? I know you for what you are!

The Jews hear this, and they bow down in joy, (Rashi says) about the news of this child!

Redemption doesn’t mean that we have to live as super heroes, or as the best Jewish tailor in the world. Redemption means that you believe that you can handle any job or mission. There will still be wicked people after Redemption, just as there is the Wicked Son; God is not asking for perfection. He is preparing us to believe in ourselves enough to accept the job we formerly believed was  “too big for us.” He is telling us that a free person feels large enough to step up to any job, even if he isn’t the most righteous person.

To be continued…

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In Tea Obreht’s wonderful novel, “The Tiger’s Wife,” Natalia explains to her grandfather that because of all the suffering of children she witnessed in the wars that ripped Yugoslavia apart, she had decided to become a pediatric surgeon.

“You’ll be leaving God out of it, then,” he said.

“What does that mean?” I said. I couldn’t remember when he had last mentioned God.

“Been around children much?”

“Why?”

“When men die, they die in fear,” he said. “They take everything they need from you, and as a doctor it is your job to give it, to comfort them, to hold their hand. But children die how they have been living – in hope. They don’t know what’s happening, so they expect nothing, they don’t ask you to hold their hand – but you end up needing them to hold yours. With children, you’re on your own. Do you understand?”

(“The Tiger’s Wife” p. 154)

I appreciate the description of the difference between a child and an adult facing death. I have sat at too many deathbeds, of both children and older people, to not know the difference between holding the hand of a dying child and that of an adult. It is gut wrenching to hold the child’s hand, and there is that sense of needing their perspective more than they need your’s. Perhaps it is because of my faith that I always sensed the presence of God in the child’s perspective. The grandfather who rarely speaks of God, has nowhere to turn when facing the death of a child under his care.

Our sages say, “During those many days, it happened that the king of Egypt died, and the Children of Israel groaned because of the work (Shemot 2:23),” that Pharaoh was stricken with leprosy and bathed in the blood of Jewish children as his cure. They are presenting a scene in which parents are groaning from their work even as their children are being massacred! Did they cry for their children? How can this happen?

They are that grandfather who lived without a sense of God, and had nowhere to turn in this worst of situations. “With children, you’re on your own. Do you understand?” I do understand why he was on his won. I also understand why the slaves in Egypt felt that they were on their own. They groaned, and it does not say, “to God,” and yet, the Haggadah describes this groaning as a “Cry to God,” “va-nitzak,” because God listened to their groans, as He does to ours, as a form of prayer.

I believe that at that moment, the Children of Israel sensed that their groans had been transformed by God into prayer; they sensed His listening to them, and they began to taste the coming redemption.

This is also why there is such a stress on children; The Four Sons, to teach us that it is still possible to see the world through the eyes of a child.

The Eyes of a Child

Through the eyes of a child

the world is grand

playing at the beach building castles of sand

Through the eyes of a child

the world is a wonder

on a stormy night hidden under the blankets scared of the thunder

Through the eyes of a child

the world is fascinating from the stars in the sky to natures sounds resonating

Through the eyes of a child

life has no time frame an endless mystery in a puzzle game

Through the eyes of the adult it all fades away

we live life so fast another hectic day

taking for granted our eyes of a child

now close them tight and as you open them let you imagination run wild.

By: Robin McGuigan

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“We guess as we read, we create; everything starts from an initial error…A large part of what we believe to be true…with an obstinacy equalled only by our good faith, springs from an original mistake in our premises (“The Fugitive” by Marcel Proust)

Proust already introduced the mistakes we make in “Swann’s Way,” when young Marcel encounters Uncle Adolphe on the street, riding in his carriage, and is so moved by his uncle’s kindness and so remorseful for having caused the family rift between his parents and uncle that he considered merely raising his hat to him an inadequate gesture. So he did nothing, turning his head away. Uncle Adolphe, concluding that Marcel was acting on his parents’ instructions, never forgave them, and Marcel never saw his uncle again.

I have seen families and friendships ripped apart by such basic and incurable misreadings, and wonder how often do I make such mistakes in relationships and in reading texts.

Had the Haggadah never described the question as that of a Wicked Son, would I assume that the question was evil? I’m not so sure.

Would I have read the verse that describes a parent teaching a child, not in response to a question, as the frustrating scene read by the Haggadah of dealing with Pierre, “who doesn’t care” enough to ask? I think not.

Would I risk defining a child by a single question? I hope not.

Was it possible for the Kohen to whom a man is brought with a questionable Tzara’at affliction to read the man as anything other than a sinner? It’s hard to believe. We are taught a list of sins for which a man is stricken with this miraculous disease; would the Kohen automatically begin to wonder which sin on the list without wondering whether he was a sinner at all? I guess no more than we begin to measure people by the type of Kipah or head covering they wear. I fear my own misreadings even more than I resent being misread.

When the Metzorah is healed and purified, he comes to the Kohen for atonement. He brings two birds as his offering, one which will be offered on the Altar, and the second that will be set free. The healed Metzorah doesn’t choose which bird will be offered and which will be set free; it’s the Kohen’s choice. The Kohen becomes part of the process because he too needs atonement; he may have ruled on the Tzara’at affliction, but there was the inevitable judgment and misreading as well.

At one point of the Pesach story, after he hears two Jews arguing about his killing the Egyptian, Moshe reflects and says, “Now, I understand!” He was wondering why the Jews were suffering, and when he heard two of them speaking Lishon Harah, negatively judging his actions, misreading his behavior, Moshe understood that such people did not merit protection, let alone, salvation. Rav Yaakov Kamenestky points out (Emet L’Yaakov, Metzorah) that Moshe also had a chance before the exodus to see that the people had changed their behavior: Moshe urged the people to “borrow” gold and silver from the Egyptians, and not a single Jew informed the Egyptians that the “loans” would never be repaid. The people stopped speaking Lishon Harah.

There is another example of this change when the people bow down with joy after hearing they will have children, even though the child mentioned is the Wicked Son of the Haggadah. They stopped judging. They stopped misreading. This is why we mention the Rasha in the Haggadah; not to judge him, but as a reminder of how he represents a major change in the people; they stopped judging. They didn’t view him as a Rasha, but as a child, which is probably why we switch some of the responses the Torah instructs us to give; don’t see the child as he is now, don’t misread him; see him as he can become.

This is also why we eat and dip Karpas before the Haggadah; we recall the story of Joseph and his brothers; a story of one brother misreading the others and speaking negatively of them to Yaakov Avinu, and the brothers misreading Joseph, and dipping his Coat of Many Colors, Ketonet Passim - hinted to in the word Karpas, as we dip the Karpas in salt water, to fool Yaakov, who ended up misreading the situation, and suffering needlessly. (This also led to a split in the family, as in Yachatz, when we split the Matzah.)

Karpas and Yachatz are warnings against such misreadings before we “read” Maggid, and after we have declared Kiddush; our intention to act with sanctity.

Hopefully, we will be able to take these lessons from Pesach and apply them throughout the year.

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“There is no such thing in man’s nature as a settled a full resolve, either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.” (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

I wonder if the Ba’al Haggadah (Author) would agree: The way most of us understand the Four Sons is as each having a fully resolved nature. “What does the Wise Son say,” implies an established nature; he is a wise child. So too, with the wicked, the “simple,” and the one who doesn’t care enough to ask. Our responses certainly seem to be to defined characters: if the Wicked child doesn’t have a fixed nature; why would we take such a firm, almost aggressive approach?

We are all too familiar with people who become the way they are treated. Why would we respond in such a manner, rather than offer an opening to a new way of thinking. Yes, I can explain the answer in a different way, but the words are the words, and they convey a hostile response.

“Blessed is the Omnipresent. Blessed is He. Blessed is He Who gave the Torah to His nation Israel. Blessed is He. The Torah spoke “Kineged,” corresponding to four children.”

Actually the Torah describes four questions, and offers answers different from some of the ones we offer in the Haggadah. Many are under the impression that the four questions listed in the Torah are about Pesach. Some are, and some are not! The Wicked and the one who doesn’t care to ask are about Pesach. The Simple question is about the complexities of the redemption of the First Born people and animals. The Wise question is about becoming someone who naturally knows how God wants him to act. The different issues instigate different sorts of questions.

The Wicked son is only child’s question presented in the present to the people about to offer the first Pesach; the rest are in the future, after we enter the land of Israel. The Wise question is presented in the context of an unusually elevated level; no wonder it’s the Wise child who appears! The different contexts stimulate different questions.

Perhaps Hawthorne was correct: their natures are not fully resolved. The “moment of execution” shapes the question and the questioner. Our challenge at this point of the Haggadah is to create an environment that will nurture a certain type of question, and not another. We create the “Kineged,” the environment to which the child responds.

There is the home that focuses on, “Blessed is the Omnipresent,” God is everywhere. His Presence permeates the family.

There is the home that lives, “Blessed is He,” in which God is an ill-defined pronoun, a weak force, of which the parents speak in vague terms. The family observes without any clarity.

There is the home of, “Blessed is He Who gave the Torah to His nation Israel,” that focuses on our unique relationship to God, and that He speaks to us through His Torah. And, there is the other type of “Blessed is He,” home, in which God is an empty noun, without any real feelings or awareness.

Each home becomes a “Kineged,” as a wife is an, “Eizer Kinegdo,” a force that pushes against the most important issues, and motivates growth.

The Torah offers answers to four types of questions. The Haggadah evaluates four types of environments.

The Seder night is our moment of execution. We can look at our Seder, see which nature or environment we have expressed, and better understand our children’s questions.

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“Patience, how it mitigates physical pain, makes it easier, more bearable, even lighter. It’s a question of non-resistance, mental resignation, a certain quieting of mind while suffering. You can sneer at this virtue or call it cowardice if you like; When resistance ceases, troubles and suffering become easier, lighter. (Giacomo Leopardi, December 30, 1826)

I remember the first time that I was able to stay awake until the end of the Seder. If I recall correctly, I managed to stay awake all Shavuot night before managing to stay awake until the end of the Seder. Perhaps it was all the grape juice that made me fall asleep. I clearly remember experiencing my eyes becoming heavy and falling asleep as suffering.

My father zt”l somehow caught the look on my face, my suffering, and said, “Let me explain to you the difference between the Wise son and the Wicked: the Wise Son asks for details; he asks about the testimonies, the statutes, and the laws. The Wicked Son bundles everything together and asks about the whole thing, without any details; “What is this service to you?” The Wicked Son is impatient. He doesn’t want to hear all the details. He wants a simple answer. He suffers through the Seder with all its details. The Wise Son however, has the patience to pay attention to each detail. He doesn’t suffer through the Seder; he thrives. Try to be more patient, and you’ll be able to stay awake as long as you want.”

As usual, he was right. I stopped being impatient for the Seder to end so that I could finally claim to have been awake for an entire Seder. I began to pay attention to the details of each moment and each step. All of a sudden, I was no longer suffering. I learned a powerful lesson about patience.

I have been hospitalized many times. The hospital stay often was worse than the illness and pain. I couldn’t wait to get out, to return home to my own bed. I didn’t have patience for all the doctors and their tests, certainly not for all the theories. That is, until I remembered my father’s lesson about patienceI stopped resisting the details. I stopped resenting all the horrible aspects of being hospitalized. I practiced the patience of the Wise Son, and the suffering was mitigated; it became bearable.

I always wonder about the hours between the conclusion of the first Pesach and beginning of the journey out of Egypt which began only the next morning. The people had been instructed to eat the Pesach with their travel clothes on and their bags packed, as if they were immediately leaving on their trip. Yet, midnight came, the First Born of Egypt died, the Egyptians were crying, the plague itself was over, but they didn’t leave. They waited.

They waited just as they had to wait through all those months of the plagues wondering, “when are we finally going to leave?” They waited just as they had waited for redemption since the slavery began. All this waiting, why?

Eventually, these people ended up waiting forty years until they were able to enter Israel. All this waiting; why?

Patience. “Perhaps, there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.” (Franz Kafka, in W H Auden, The Dyer’s Hand)

The Redemption from Egypt is all about Time: God offers as His first commandment to the nation, the law of Sanctification of the New Moon. Many of the plagues are an issue of time; “When would you like me to remove the Frogs?” “Tomorrow I will stop the Hail.” “At midnight, God will slay all the First Born.” Patience is an essential key to learning about Time. Adam and Eve failed in Paradise because they were impatient. If we were to learn how to have a relationship with God, Above and Beyond Time, we had to learn to live according to His schedule, not ours.

The impatience of the Wicked Son causes us to miss the lessons of many essential details and important moments. It distracts us. It causes suffering. Patience, however, not only mitigates the suffering, it frees us of the boundaries of time; the first lesson of the Pesach offering, the lesson of Parshat Hachodesh.

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“Even so, after the hard work of man and ox to turn

earth over, nothing stops the goose to uproot wheat,

Eurasian cranes, and chicory with its bitter roots,

nor is heavy shade harmless. The Father himself hardly

willed that agriculture would be easy when he called forth

the field with his art, whetting human minds with worries,

not letting his kingdom slip into full blown laziness (Virgil).”

“In every generation a person must see himself as if he went out of Egypt.”

We know well the feeling of laboring for nothing; “nothing stops the goose to uproot wheat.”

We know well the sense of constantly worrying whether our work will pay, whether we will have enough to support our family; “whetting human minds with worries.”

We do have a sense of what it meant to work as a slave in Egypt.

Virgil explained that it is all so as to, “not let(ting) his kingdom slip into full blown laziness.”

Who is the “laziest” person in the Haggadah?

The Son Who Does Not (Care Enough to) Ask. Even the Wicked son bothers to ask.

When we apply Virgil’s observations to questioning the world, Torah, and what we know, they take on new meaning:

They describe the person who has struggled for years to study Gemara (Talmud) without success. Virgil’s words can be used to describe the person who feels that it is so easy to lose everything he has gained in his Torah study and Service of God. They describe the person who worries that no matter how much she studies it is not enough. His words are an apt description of the person who has been searching for years to find his special connection to his Torah study and Mitzvot, but is constantly frustrated by wind blowing it all out of his reach.

When we are asked to view ourselves as having gone out of Egypt, and knowing the pain of slave labor; we are being asked to acknowledge the moments when even our Service of God feels like heavy labor.

The standard is defined at the Seder, at the time of the Four Children, and our response to those moments; we have a choice on the Seder night whether to work hard to add meaning to every step, or whether we will suffer through as does the Child who does not ask. Will we challenge ourselves to find meaning in each word and every step, as does the Wise child; or will we wait for someone to hand it to us all ready and prepared, as does the Simple child? Or, will we, at least, put up a fight, challenging those around us to explain what they see in their individual work, as does the Wicked child?

Our Avodah at the Seder is our Work Ethic.

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